Re-Creating Us
What happens to people, families, communities, and society when we designate a person as ‘other’, based on perceptions of abilities or disabilities? Conversations about the power and meaning of words, practices, and stories, that make a difference in the work of reclaiming personhood, and re-creating the experience of Us.
Re-Creating Us
Co-Creating Radical Hospitality: Lynda Kahn
We examine how to knit inclusive communities together through the art of making every individual feel acknowledged and embraced. From Rhode Island discussions to kitchen table chats, we celebrate the collective joy of shared contributions and the gift that strangers can bring into our lives.
In the bustling tapestry of our lives, we often yearn for genuine connections. This episode uncovers personal stories that highlight the anticipatory and welcoming nature of hospitality, steeped in family traditions and the importance of crafting spaces ripe for heartfelt conversations. We share how the guiding influences of our lives have shaped our approach to hosting and fostering connections that leave you feeling part of something larger than yourself.
We venture into the digital realm where skepticism about remote facilitation transforms into a celebration of virtual intimacy. In the wake of COVID-19, technology became our unexpected ally, proving that even when apart, we can still create spaces of vulnerability and growth. Stories of overcoming obstacles like power outages and adapting to impromptu settings reveal our capacity for resilience. Join us in embracing adaptability, tender-hearted listening, and the profound art of asking questions that resonate with the soul.
Recommended reading:
The Art of Gathering - Priya Parker
The Love Prescription - John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman
Learning to Listen - Herb Lovett
The Listening Path - Julia Cameron
No Bad Parts - Richard Schwartz
Turning To One Another - Margaret J. Wheatley
The Intuitive Body - Wendy Palmer
Recreating us is a neighbor's international production. Neighbor's international is committed to an asset-based focus of co-creative change, developing the capacity to welcome the diversity of gifts, knowledge and experiences available in each one of us. Linda Kahn is an educator, a facilitator, a host and a masterful practitioner of the arts of hospitality.
Lynda Kahn:And I keep thinking about ways to kind of notice the tender heartedness and what creates a tender heart. I think it just really matters to me and I'm still learning about what's it take for people to feel seen and heard and held.
David Hasbury:I'm Dave Hasbury, and in this conversation we explore the experience of radical hospitality in building a bigger we. We explore how we can draw upon our ordinary experiences of being hosted and welcomed and how these experiences can be lifted from ordinary to extraordinary by facilitating co-creation in the service of building community. We consider the importance of our awareness of our intention in inviting and gathering people, and how paying attention to our inner condition is essential to calming and centering our ability to be present, to what is possible when people gather, and we contemplate the power of great questions that can safely open us to experience a soft heart that makes connection through conversation possible. So welcome, thank you for being here.
David Hasbury:It's always good to see you, but it's nice to have this conversation because we have not done it quite like this. Usually we are standing in your kitchen or sitting at your dining room table or watching a video up in your living space upstairs, so this is different. But it really is related to those other things, because one of the things about you is you are both an incredibly gracious and skilled host. You know how to welcome people and make people feel at home, and the reason why I wanted to have this conversation is because I know how good you are at this in ways that they're not my strength as much as yours, so I'm really glad that you're here.
Lynda Kahn:So for this, Well, I appreciate the invitation to just have a chance to reflect on it and think about okay, what do I do about this? What do I do, why am I doing this, what do I believe? And I think it was interesting. Earlier this week we had an opportunity to talk about relationships and connection and community at the invitation of folks in Rhode Island and we shared the session with the fabulous Angela Amato and it was fun to put that presentation together. And it was also really interesting to think about what it means to create a sense of a collective and connection. And so we reflected, not surprisingly, on a theme we've touched on in the final large Toronto Summer Institute gatherings and that was building a bigger we. And one of the points in thinking about what it takes to build a bigger we is engaging in radical hospitality.
David Hasbury:I love the term.
Lynda Kahn:I do too, and I was really thinking about when I've loved it most isn't that I'm doing all the hosting and people are receiving, but what I really like when I think was close to New Year's, when we were together it was the act of co creation. It was creating it together and having people really make a contribution, because it's really not about entertaining, it's about connecting and relationship and everybody feeling in. And I still remember being together with John McKnight and his talking about hospitality as an aspect not only of making people feel welcome for friends of yours, but welcoming a stranger and creating a space where everyone feels really in and included.
David Hasbury:Yeah, in a previous conversation I had with John O'Brien for this podcast, john referenced two things.
David Hasbury:One was he just talked about the significance of asking, so just simply asking and inviting people and the importance of that, and the second was the whole notion of hospitality and we talked about members and members of each other and all that, and what he talked about is and person and personhood, and he said, you know, a person really is a mystery and is something to be in awe of, and part of the thing about welcoming is and welcoming particularly people who may be outside is the mystery that we can receive from that, and so the whole welcome and hospitality is really a big, big piece of all of this. And I, you know this conversation I think it has greater relevance to a much wider circle, but I, because of the nature of our experience yours, mine and others that are fighting into these conversations we've spent a lot of time paying attention to what happens to people who have been labeled and their families, people who have been systematically punched out of everything, and so I really think about those people in this process and the people who accompany them. You know the whole and the people who we want to reach out to in those in those ways. But one of the things I wanted to talk to you talk about first, even before we get into the relevance to this, to your, to your practice in your vocational work is the ordinary elements of this.
David Hasbury:So hosting and hospitality are things that you are deeply practiced and embedded in. But even beyond what your work is all about, these are a part of who you are, these are a part of your friendships and about the way your home is set up, and I think of us trying to kind of take what are really ordinary notions and ordinary experiences and kind of elevate them to extraordinary you know, to kind of you know, I think that's what the radical hospitality is really all about.
David Hasbury:It's extraordinary, it's that notion that these are things that are many people's experience, whether as the receiver or as the contributor. But it's partly bringing our attention to to what that's all about.
Lynda Kahn:That's right because it actually reflects Okay. So I think about who's coming. Who have we invited to be here? What do they care about? What's going to make, whether it's our four year old granddaughter and her parents and their interests. And you know, most recently we had this fabulous opportunity for Chris and Laura and Hazel to be here Right after Christmas and Hanukkah, coming into the New Year. So here for 10 days we did snow dances. So Hazel got snow. That is not in my control, but there it was.
Lynda Kahn:And Pete and Rebecca are two girls, lauren, rebecca and their husbands. They were able to spend a bunch of time and so, and the cousins Nouveau, megan and Andrew, were here and Jack, sister Kate, was here, and so there was just space and we, we also physically transformed some of the spaces in the house for people's comfort. We created the conditions, we moved, we moved furniture, we created a bar and a different kind of pantry. We thought about what I mean, just things that were available, that are just almost invisible. Yeah, but they make all the difference. I actually keep a list. I know, when my mom used to come after she left on the visit. I actually had in my computer, on her contact card, the basket, the knife, the cutting board. And right before she would ask me could I have this?
Lynda Kahn:could I have that? And of course you can. It became easier when she came to visit than I, just because some of it is anticipatory, to create comfort and a real feeling of welcome for people and just you know, I'm a type A. I can get wrapped up pretty tight. One of my practices is just letting go. Okay, so say hello to that part of you and tell her to calm down. Thanks for stopping by. You're not going to be helpful here. It's not going to be perfect. It's not helpful if you don't make space for people to contribute. That's not what you want.
Lynda Kahn:I actually really thought about how do I hold this space in a way that everybody feels in and that I'm not the chef and my boyfriend, jack's not the dishwasher. How are we in this space? In a way, just because of the physical layout of the house, you can get really separated from the conversation. My redesigned house has just one big, big room, right, because you remember, oh my gosh, after Judith Snow passed in 2015 and people gathered here Were there, 20 of us in that very small kitchen. There were spaces around and where we were was in the heartbeat of the house, pulling the furniture in, just letting it be For me. I loved it. It felt really great and I really do have to think about how do I really keep maintaining that intention for genuine, really extraordinary welcome. I know what it takes. It also takes it in stride and still leaves enough energy to be with the people.
David Hasbury:Yeah, because it's a part of the welcome is that people actually feel your presence when you're there.
Lynda Kahn:Adjust. So, and I continue to be learning in that regard, and one of the things that was actually really helpful with everyone who was going to be in and out of the house was for me to name it and invite their help and talk about the intention. As Priya Parker would say, be clear about the purpose.
David Hasbury:Yeah.
Lynda Kahn:We're talking about how we want to be together. How we want to be together, what are we facilitating here in terms of everybody's connections, and how? Help me not retreat into this role of I'm doing it all when I know that what we're all interested in is a we yeah.
David Hasbury:So I want to step back before we go too much further, because this is all great, but I have a sense that you had early experiences in your life where you started to learn what hosting and hospitality were all about, and before you were even the practitioner of it all. Where did you learn that? Where, where did you experience that most in terms of your life, that kind of little bit of a vital experience in you to kind of say, oh this, there's something here.
Lynda Kahn:Very interestingly, my mother.
Lynda Kahn:Yeah yeah Was brilliant. Not, we're not talking, this was fancy cooking. That's not what this was about. But from the time I was, we my mother had the most remarkable sense of Relationships and making space and the kids fell welcomed through high school If I wasn't home. When a friend stopped by, they often came in and it didn't matter If I was home, because my mother would never have described that she was holding space. But my mother held each person's threads and story and they loved that presence and focus and I, I certainly knew it. There are times that you, you witness things you don't even know. You're seeing Right and you know. Steve Jobs would say you only connect the dots by looking backwards. Yeah, yeah.
Lynda Kahn:You know, I can see that my mother's generosity of spirit In that regard and her attention to Relationships, friends and family. You know I, even in her later years, after she moved from Florida and had gone to Georgia and then was living in Michigan, I traveled back with her. Let me go see my girlfriends in Florida, so let me help facilitate you can see my youngest sister who lives there and let's have lunches with your friends. These women connected in a way that they called themselves chapter four. They were friends through their kids. They after all the kids were launched and even after their bowling days were over, they were no surprise to you, they knew you go to lunch afterwards. So these, these friendships were really important and I just I witnessed that.
Lynda Kahn:And even though my mother was not particularly a fancy cook, she was also a woman who wouldn't put out a bag of potato chips without taking the top off and finding a bowl. We never talk about these things, but my girls would not do this either. They would find the bowl in the napkin and I never said, oh, you find a bowl in the napkin, you eat first with your eyes. Presentation matters this just kind of in the drinking water, but flow was remarkable. I think about yeah.
David Hasbury:I didn't get to know your mom a lot because we because of distance and her visiting is when I got to, but I did get a sense of a graciousness about her and a caring about who you were, especially if you were related to you, like she cared about the people that you cared about and it was really felt and she was very gracious in that way and I meant I wanted to ask you about that because you're not the only person who has had those experiences right, like they've had experiences from early days, often a mother but not always but often it's the mother who kind of made the space for the house to be the place where the kids could show up where, or the gathering of the family, those celebrations of seasonal gatherings and all that kind of stuff and the kind of attention.
David Hasbury:So I only put that out because we're not all starting from zero. You know, we're starting from a lived experience of something and I could, I can tell you in my life those gatherings were not my favorite place to be from my family experience. But I know other members of my family, my extended family, for whom they handled things differently than they were in my house and you could tell that there was a different way that people attended to all that, and becoming aware of that is just really important because it's not foreign. You know, the notion of hosting and hospitality is not foreign. You've either experienced it by being invited into something and know what that's about, or you've actually participated in it as somebody. So, anyway, I wanted to find out a little bit about and I had a sense that you would say that it was your mom.
Lynda Kahn:That was a kind of iconic and you keep learning because there I am. I've witnessed my mom and I'm at Ohio State in my early years. There and I'm with a group of friends, men and women. One of them men says gee, I'm thirsty, and I found myself standing up to go do something about it. And he looked at me and said what are you doing? Sit back down. I'm perfectly capable of, and I thought it's so interesting because my mom was from a generation that was really traditionally in that role, and those are things that I'm still learning about. Then include saying to people who are here Please, I will remember to ask you if there's something you want, but I will feel most comfortable if I know that you would actually go into my refrigerator. I would like to orient you. Let's learn how the coffee maker works. What else would make you comfortable? Because you'll never be Otherwise, you're doing exactly that. It's all. I'm holding it all and I'm responsible for it all, and I know that's not it.
David Hasbury:Well, I think that this is kind of the intersection with your personal life and partly that mode can become an exhausting thing to actually be the person who's caring for everything all the time.
David Hasbury:So as we get older, we kind of go wait a minute. This is exhausting. But I think the connection in this is also and you've already referenced Priya Parker, who's the author of the Art of Gathering just this notion and you have been a long time practitioner of convening people for a variety of purposes just the notion of thinking about the intent of what you're trying to do and how that goes into both the way you receive people when they come, but how you invite them in the first place, how you even decide who comes, because it gets to the place of welcome and inclusion is and Priya Parker speaks of this that's a really valuable thing if it fits with what you're trying to do. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the kind of thinking you do when you're thinking about the experience that you're trying to create when you're convening, gathering, all that. So yeah, talk about your intention and how you figure it out.
Lynda Kahn:I think one of the things that I really think about begins with actually just trying to quiet myself and hold that question for myself about what's our purpose here.
Lynda Kahn:What are we trying to do, and can we find some ways to say that in an interesting, clear way so that people can actually decide if they want to join or not, where you can see I want to be in this or not. I don't really want to be part of this and I think that I've learned from you and many other people who we've been with on the journey that so much of really clarifying what's my purpose, what's the purpose of the gathering, and what does that even begin to suggest about how you would design the way that people will connect, as well as the space. And, really importantly, how do you co-create that with other people? Can you begin to make that clear enough that other people can really participate so that your type A doesn't think I have to do all this Because you cannot do all this and it isn't better if only a few people do this. It is far better if the event has been co-created and the people who are engaged have an idea about how they can contribute. That just shifts the energy completely.
David Hasbury:Well, I do think that some of that, though, is related to a larger purpose that you and I might experience, which is the creation and vitalization of community, the experience of a beggar wee which emphasis on the WE, the WE part and not everybody would have that as a higher purpose, the kind of fostering, cultivating a sense of wee, but I think for you, this notion is about that. You can tell me more about that, but I think all of your work is really all about how do we leave people with an experience of they are a part of something.
Lynda Kahn:They're a part of something and they're able to act, mobilize when we're at our best. People have made connections with other people, they've fallen in love with other people in the deepest friendship way, and some of the folks who are particularly dear to me I met in 2005 when I went to my first Toronto Summer Institute the way that I was held or greeted some of those friendships are now decades old.
Lynda Kahn:In fact, because it links back to something that's pretty dear to me, which is seeing people and being seen holding a kind of curiosity that really wants to listen so deeply into what someone is saying, who they are and what they're about, that their gifts become manifest. And I can remember where that notion first came to me, the idea of giftedness. But I think about being able to listen into what people say and what they care about and their story. I find myself listening for gifts and connections. I've had positions. I was a project evaluator in the state of Ohio for projects funded by the Developmental Disabilities Planning Council there, I don't know, probably 1979. I found myself listening. I was supposed to visit all the grantees and I found myself going to visit them and saying, oh, wait a minute. Okay, All right, so you're really interested in this and you probably want to go talk to this person that I just met over there. It was just the nature of trying to make those connections. And so there you go in the journey, as the weaving goes on.
Lynda Kahn:My interest in then thinking about well, what's the art of having a conversation? How about difficult conversations? What are some really good questions to ask? How do you really listen in a way that you sink in, where you're not pretending to listen, but something new actually, which is, I'm sure, what you're hoping for from these conversations is. There's something new that's even created because of having the conversation. It's generative. You're not so busy downloading, oh my gosh. Well, I remember whatever I think I wanted to say to what I did in approaching this was oh, just be here now.
David Hasbury:Well, and it strikes me that your calming the type A in you is in part related to being able to listen better.
David Hasbury:When the type A is going so fast it's really hard to stop and breathe and notice what's going on. But I want to talk to you a little bit because you mentioned 1979 in Ohio, and then you ended up in Rhode Island at some point and I know, and you ended up there as a director of developmental disability. You ended up ultimately in that kind of place and from that place you still kind of kept that notion of welcome, of listening, of convening, of intentional, and I know that some of your deep friends that you have still in your life come from that place and the kind of and it included a number of family folks, people who were quite familiar with what it feels like to be rejected or what it feels like to be ignored or what it feels like to not be listened to. But I wonder if you could just talk about, from a high level of administration still, the place that hosting and hospitality held for you even in those roles.
Lynda Kahn:Well, I really came to appreciate that when I was at my best I really needed to be connected to folks with disabilities and families and fortunately I didn't enter that place as the state director. I came as Ms Flipchart and Markers. I entered a role. The job title was the director of professional services at the state institution. That within, fortunately within years of my being there, rhode Island was the first state to announce they would be closing their institution and my work there was connected to facilitating conversations.
Lynda Kahn:Oh, I still remember vividly I just digress a moment because remember early on I had the mistaken idea that when you kind of held the leadership role for a team of people and I do use this now in air quotes is that I remember one of the really senior people on the team turned to me because something came up and I started thinking about what the solution would be and he looked at me and said you might want to consider listening and inviting what those of us who have been here a while would say. You need not do it, but you might want to know how we you know how we're thinking about this and fortunately I could make new mistakes after that. I didn't make that one again and I've not forgotten it about. Remember there are people with other experience and perceptions here and you need to be really listening, not and I'm still in recovery on this and not rushing to the solution. There will be some real resonance and passion, as Peter Block would say, when you come into the solution. But it's not. I'm in charge. Here's the problem, there's the solution. There's all that stuff that actually is in, as we know, have come to one of our more recent years, be introduced to the work of the Presencing Institute, but there's all of those ways of getting to know and learning from many perspectives about what's going on and, you know, letting go of that, reflecting and looking at what the future can be.
Lynda Kahn:And I think that's why some of the, some of the bodies of work and other practitioners and authors and writers, why I have found such resonance, is that that's been a way that I've been curious and sense making for a while and then sometimes you bump into oh my goodness, isn't that a great framework? Well, that's really helpful. It's how I felt when John O'Brien handed me Priya Parker's book and I started reading it. Then we'd come to a gathering in your home in New Jersey, the book raising Before the summer institute. It was in June and he said you might want to read this. We're so waiting for that book, aren't we? I think we are, I think we are. But I do think about the importance of curiosity and noticing how you're listening and when there's just other noise that's interfering, because you can't hear somebody when you're busy listening to yourself, and that happens. And so I'm so interested in some of the work about our own inner condition and what.
Lynda Kahn:I can do to just calm down. Notice all the other noisy bits Like the insecure one, the perfectionist, the type A control person, the manager. Yeah yeah, yeah, Hello, nice to see you. The inner critic, oh my gosh.
David Hasbury:I have a deeply, profoundly intimate relationship with that person.
Lynda Kahn:Right, they're so busy and I think I really appreciate some of the work that therapists that I'm seeing is pretty fabulous in this regard and familiar with Dick Schwartz's work on internal family systems. And Dr Becky Kennedy, who is, I think, just completely brilliant child psychologist, also has these threads in her work and it is so helpful to just have some grace and humor about all these other characters that they really do make up all of who we are and thank them for showing up. But don't work, because that's not really who we need right now.
David Hasbury:Well, and that comes back to the whole notion of really being clear about intention and what do we need in order to create the experience and be part of the experience that we hope would be shared? And so I wonder if you could just talk about that and for you, invite and convene what goes into you thinking about what am I doing here?
Lynda Kahn:It is exactly that. It is that by this point I've learned to name my intention and I'm often I have the benefit of living with and working with Jack Pierpoint, who is pretty brilliant husband and partner, and we can talk about that and have an exchange about that, and I find it pretty helpful to just be able to reflect on that out loud and be able to go back and forth about it and talk about what our purpose is. We've even thought about it, davis. We've been facilitating the most recent path and maps courses, the person centered ways to build community courses on Zoom and started to begin connecting personally with people ahead of time. You know that email has to do with our purpose with these conversations is right. It's not a qualifying exam for the event, it is a real. We just love to connect and get to know you some and answer any questions you've got, and do that before we're going to be in this virtual space together. What a gift that would be to us. Meant sincerely, and it has been.
David Hasbury:Yeah, yeah.
David Hasbury:Well you know, and I think about this just in relationship to our experience together in what is now known as the Pathfinder's studio, but began four years ago and we were going to gather in Toronto with a group of people to begin to think about something. I don't even know if we had clearly defined what it was we were going to think about, but you and Jack had done the homework to figure out a space that could best accommodate the kind of gathering that we had intended. Right, and if you can talk about that, you know, just talk about that kind of thinking about, because I want to come to the flip side of that, which is you do with whatever you have, but the, but a starting place often is kind of thinking about what do we want the feel of a place to be. So can you talk a little bit about that kind of thinking about?
Lynda Kahn:Right. I think, when you think about your purpose and you're looking for contact and connection and deep reflection, that led us to think it's not a hotel. They're not going to be able to do what we want in that kind of space. What are we looking for? And probably because of holding some of those considerations previously, we found the Quaker Meeting House here in Toronto and that space where you could you couldn't do some of the wandering through a park that we would have loved, but you could see green there was a kitchen, there were couches and furnitures, there was a sunroom, there was a big meeting space, you could get a big circle of chairs and I thought, yeah, that's going to make a real difference, because then it means when you say we want to share hospitality with one another, you can stop and bring something. There'll be space in the refrigerator, people can do that, so people can make a contribution in a way that you're not facing the hotel that says there's no external food allowed in this venue.
David Hasbury:Yeah, yeah, it's a fascinating thing that the hospitality industry really is more industry than hospitality and really wants to actually kind of control the environment. But you were finding a place. But the thing that was interesting about that is that you and Jack had both put a lot of thought into that and looked around, and part of it is because you've had a history of doing things in Toronto and you're always looking for that kind of space to create. And then COVID hit and we kind of went from what we're coming in April when we were in February and saying I don't think we're going anywhere. And so what could we do on a virtual space, a non-line space? And it's been interesting.
David Hasbury:And I only raise this because A I think all of us at the time were a little dubious as to what that was going to be like to be online. We didn't have that much experience with it at that point and we were all a little bit oh, we're going to lose so much by being online that it's not going to be that meaningful, and surprise ourselves by how much we actually discovered, because the intentions still remained, they didn't go away. It was like the room and the building change. But how could you still kind of. But it's interesting, throughout this period of COVID, you and Jack have, in part because of COVID, made convening for learning together a bigger practice for you. I mean, you're effectively it's the way you've been doing what you used to do by going to a location and a community and all that.
David Hasbury:You're actually gathering people online and in that process it takes time to learn what that means to be in a different space with different resources and all that.
David Hasbury:And it's been in the last and maybe you can tell me it's longer than this, but it feels like in the last year that you really learned about what was missing from being in physical space, where you could have those conversations and learn a little bit about who people were. That you and Jack actually made it a proactive thing of where we're actually going to reach out and we're going to actually talk to you before you come, so we know who you are when you show up and we know what we can expect a little bit, because we lost that. So I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about how that learning came, because we in the Pathfinder studio in 2024, took your experience and kind of said we need to do that in this new experience that we're having online. So I wonder if you could just talk about the learning that comes. That's an interplay between the setting that you're in and the relationship you want to establish with people.
Lynda Kahn:To me. I think about the fact that it has everything to do with holding that initial intention and also holding the question what more is possible? Is there any other way to lean into this? Let us recall that the first time we actually even did anything appearing on Zoom is when you and Patty Scott host an event in New Jersey with 30 people in a room and said you can do it, we'll be here, all of us will be gathered and you guys can facilitate remotely. And we decided we would prototype it. Right, it was a really big stretch.
Lynda Kahn:I'm always in for appreciating that. Sometimes my first answer is no way. Is that going to work? And then I can never stay with no. No is an energizer for me. If we can imagine it, it must be possible, and so we learned a lot about okay, so what's it take to do that? How many things that we would use here do we need to also have there because of the lag, etc. Etc. Etc. And we were all surprised, with the help of you know, several interesting gadgets and technology, we could get like this face to face. And it was the first time I ever facilitated, that's true. I forgot about where I was remote and the person in their planning circle were together, but we were not physically together, and I absolutely am an energy reader. When I'm physically with people, for sure, you know, I will actually move around the room as people check in, holding some space in front of them, not ever standing over them to hear what someone has to say, because there's just something that happens in that field, and so I knew I would be missing that. But with your invitation we tried it and then we can fast forward.
Lynda Kahn:I don't think we did anything else with it for a while, but when COVID came, I think the thing that made such a difference for us was that we had a couple of friends who said I'd really like you to try this. I know that you don't think it's possible and I don't know if it's possible, but just Baldick said with my team of five at four hours, could we, could six of us gather, could we try this? I've experienced these processes. I've been with people in person, with you at least two or three. I could, even we could think about this together in the design, at which point I also began to realize that zoom needed to be an extension of the facilitation and I needed to learn it.
Lynda Kahn:As John O'Brien would say, who is the person least likely to have done any technological mastery of any kind? That would be me, and yet I didn't. It could not stop me. I had to let go of the. You can't do this, somebody else does this with. But this is about facilitation, and if I'm going to hold this space and I'm going to help people be in small group conversations or think about how can I help people imagine they're sitting in a circle, what can I do? As I drew a piece of paper, took a picture of it, a screen, shared it and said here you are, people are on the zoom, here you are sitting in this circle. You're going to pass to the person next to you, just trying then to tap into who else has got some of this experience that we can learn from. What's the art of hosting virtually Right, right, and so we do keep learning, and it's it's not. I'm sure we're not done.
David Hasbury:No, I love that you brought in the question. We'll never be done because the what more is possible question always lives in the experience. Now, I got to know you in 2000,. Started to get to know you at that time. I've known Jack a lot longer and I know that together you're this, but I knew Jack before I got to know you. And Jack is a master of the space, does not confine you and that and partly it's because of the big convenings of the Summer Institute became such a practice in his life and often those, those settings were not the ideal settings, you know right. And and so it's about what can you do with what you have to make an experience possible? And I wonder if you could share a little bit of, and even some stories of you know how a space becomes something different than it appears as two or three stories for sure that that come.
Lynda Kahn:One of the funny things about getting to know Jack more deeply is that I think we have a fundamental non compliance in common. Just, you know, I've I've come into meeting spaces and independently we've had stories of there was a big conference table, we didn't want people, I didn't want people at the conference table, and he's got he's got stories of that conference table was never moved. We moved it and and I coincidentally did as well of just no, let's, let's just move this, let's reconfigure the space. We've had people leave a room, come back in and co creatively set up the space. But I can remember the time, thinking about a time in Georgia path and maps course with 35 people is in a hotel room and I believe there had not been, there might not have been any hospitality. In this case, some somehow something slipped it, it wasn't arranged had the great gift that Connie among the people in the room were Connie, lyle O'Brien and Michelle Schwartz and another couple non compliant souls who said you know, connie didn't hesitate to say I'm ordering a carafe of coffee and before the end of the day, you know, we conferred with Michelle about it as well, who of course had all kinds of fabulous energy. And we look at the group and say there just wasn't anything provided and it won't be possible that way. Would you please go home and look in your cupboards? Somebody wants to bake something great, stop somewhere, but just bring what you got. Well, I think it still stands out for me as one of the most remarkable co-created events. And then we started to put the graphic posters up on the wall and the environment is completely transformed. We had people from all over the hotel, including the people who worked for the hotel, coming in to say can we talk about what you're doing here and why? Why is the space like this? Why are people laughing so much? What is happening here? And there would have been every reason for that not to have worked.
Lynda Kahn:And I think about the times that the space oof California. We're in a space. There's electronic curtains, there's fancy technological stuff. We're in a room very fancy conference space, that I can't feel the people. I'm physically there, but maybe there's 100 people. But the space is so vast and the tables are so far that I thought, uh, there's no resonance, it's not happening.
Lynda Kahn:And external forces intervened. I think we were in Sacramento and the power went out. The fancy, dancey conference room wasn't going to work for day two, and so now there's a telephone tree to let people know where we're going to be meeting. It's one of the organizations in way too small a space. We had talked about gifts. People came with music, guitars, food. There was this awful circumstance that then turned out to be the most fabulous conversation. That also gave us an opportunity to talk about holding space, setting the container, creating the conditions, naming what wasn't working the day before and making transparent what is happening between us in this space now.
Lynda Kahn:And then the third is the day the power went out, when we're convening a session in Rhode Island and the only place people can gather with their hats and gloves still on in Northern Rhode Island is upstairs in some loft. We need wall space. There is no wall space. We put flip charts on the back of a mattress and had with this group of people in what you might have otherwise said can't work.
Lynda Kahn:People's creative juices just went wild because we said, well, sure, we can do this, okay, okay, what would it take? Let's all do this. What's the conversation we want to have? And we invented it, and so much of that really also certainly comes as the co-facilitators and the other people you're hosting with, you can't be in a point of despair that is contagious Despair. No, does not work. But when you say, okay, sure, sure, we could figure this out, right, I don't know, I think about our friend Erwin inventing, thinking about the purpose of an invent and inventing one of the things we did together in the Netherlands on a boat, right, but it just you think about looping back to what's the intention, and it has not only to do with thinking about the people and the processes, but the environment and the container, and that, of course, leads you to think about. So what are the conversations you want to have, what are the big messy questions we could engage in that will get people to get knee to knee and dive in and connect more deeply.
David Hasbury:I think, of some keywords throughout this conversation Intention is one, but we is another. So the sense of we and whether it's creating the conditions for we to be the experience Can, is another one. With whatever you've got, we can do something. And the possible as a kind of guiding star out there that kind of says, okay, what's possible with what we have, what more is possible with what we have? And I've just put this out there because, again, from the ordinary extraordinary thing, there are no ideals. You aspire from wherever you are, with whatever, you have to make an experience. And if we is the experience, there's always something that's possible in all of this kind of thing.
Lynda Kahn:Oh my gosh. I think about something I listened to and came across early 2000s. That was a young man with AIDS who was in Cozy Johnson who said something pretty much like do all you can with what you have in the place you are. And I also think that when you ask about preparation and what do you think about?
Lynda Kahn:I think I've really been noticing and intentional about the fact that when I'm at my best, I'm vulnerable. I have a tender heart and there are times that I can even notice when my heart is too hard, I'm too full of this is annoying me and that is annoying me and I can't find my grace and I think about what do I need to do to sink back into the passion I hold for this? The curiosity, the love, the just being in that more vulnerable, tender space is when I'm actually a better listener, a better facilitator. I can't say this is going to have been my best, but probably an hour ago maybe, when you asked me about so, the early years, and I started to talk about my mom, I absolutely we probably could both go back I've had a quiver in my voice and tears in my eye and to the extent that I wondered will I just be able to relax and just show up as me, even if it just sounds like me. That's what it takes.
David Hasbury:I wholeheartedly agree. I can always feel when I've hardened, and especially when I'm with a group of people, and sometimes the setting is actually what hardens me a lot. But I wonder if you could just speak of and it comes kind of out of this thing, because that softening vulnerability is a part of what's important. Not because, for just because there's authentic when we're in that space, because it's more real than a lot of things, but when you think of what the language is that you use, that would have that softness to it in order to make an invitation, in order to listen to people and order to encourage people to talk. Can you just talk about the way that you talk when you're kind of hosting and creating hospitality?
Lynda Kahn:Oh, it's interesting. I think that you can hear something different in your own voice when you tune in, when I think about how lucky I really was to meet Wendy Palmer and encounter conscious embodiment and her work at the Shambhala Institute. We went one summer maybe I wanted to know this date 2005, 6, 7, 8, 9, something like that and in meeting her she was so wise about connecting into your body and not the first time that someone had talked about. Tune in to what's happening to you physically, think about how you settle in, extend your energy, appreciate where you are in space, holding that space, and think about a quality that you want to bring more of into this circumstance. And when I do that and I actually still the quality I hold most often is what would it be like if I had a little more grace? Because that's the quality at times that can be the biggest stretch and can be the space in which, when I listen from that space, I'm both more vulnerable and have courage, I can hold curiosity and be less certain that the questions are actually so important for creating the exploration. And so when I can remind myself about those kinds of things and I keep thinking about ways to kind of notice, the tenderheartedness and what creates a tender heart, and have complete mayday when I understand that I've just gotten frustrated this didn't send, that didn't go, this didn't go and you go. Oh no, you're going to have to let that go because we're not going to make it here, you're not going to bring that kind of curiosity and I guess some of the language includes. Tell me more what I mean.
Lynda Kahn:There's exploring kinds of language that connects with people and I think it just really matters to me and I'm still learning about what's it take for people to feel seen and heard and held and not have rushed to a solution or to quick response. I have had great teachers in my children. I still remember Laura telling me a story and I started to offer a solution and she gave me the hand. I went sad. Sometimes, mom, a girl just wants her mother to bear witness. Okay, okay, I got you All right, noted, thank you. Thanks for that.
David Hasbury:Well, it's interesting because I think you referenced a couple of things here. You talked about just the attention and awareness to your inner condition which actually allows you to be in touch with what that tenderhearted place is. It's not a language place, it's actually it's pre-language, and in the conversation with John he talks about that as well, that the first communication isn't words, it's before the words. And part of the thing about all this is if we're in language first and not in tenderhearted first, the language covers the tender heart and from the notion of inclusion and the notion of many of the people that we've come to know, for whom language is not their skill, they're not linguists in the way that they communicate, having that communication be the tender heart is actually a really important element.
Lynda Kahn:I think that's right and I have come to appreciate that. The aspect also that I think we're energy and we move in an energetic field. And if you will open yourself up to noticing that about who you are and what else is going on in the space, then you will not just see, you will feel when someone else is either hurting or feeling at the edge, and you can make a decision about whether or not you're leaning into that connection and going to notice that or not. And I can think about relationships that I have that are really important. That began that way, where it was just someone that I noticed in a very big field of people and I could see and sat next to.
Lynda Kahn:And as we're both looking forward, do you want to tell me about it? Do you want to talk about it? I want some ideas for what we might do about it. Yeah, and well, I've been lucky. I've been lucky in that way to have some very good teachers. You know it's funny, dave, I was really thinking about that. Inner condition also has to do with something ourselves which people are often not very comfortable doing, but I want to see the other. I was thinking about some of the influences. Talk to you guys about this little book.
David Hasbury:Well, that was my next question I was going to ask you about oh, that's cool the love prescription. Who's that by?
Lynda Kahn:John and Julie Gottman and um, and it is really about noticing connection and when at times, in the smallest ways, we experience bid for bids for connection, even in our most intimate relationships and their and friendships, and you either are turning towards or turning away or turning against. And so there are some very proactive suggestions about noticing this and appreciations and things. I came to it because when Renee Brown had her podcast on locking us, she interviewed them and I thought, oh yeah, this is good and as we call him poor Jack, then the book reading on all the books on audible of the book on a ride home from the schoolhouse and and really in the immediate many months after that it, it made a positive difference in our relationship and I realized from time to time all of these relationships really need intention, attention and intention. So I think it's interesting that I was.
Lynda Kahn:I think it's a really great example of it, of the people who you know have been hosting me. It's connecting together, it's right, I'm in attention with a circle of friends. It's thinking about what it takes to cultivate new connections and and I often find other and saying, oh, I just, I just, it's been way too long, you know and I. It's the hardest thing about COVID which I think lingers still. It is still much harder to find personal connection. Time and relationships changed in that period, as we know, and I think about how much intention it brings and the difference there is between being on a phone call, or even a Zoom call, and what happens when you're just hanging out.
David Hasbury:Well, I certainly know it because when we get to come and stop by your place which is a ritual for us on our way up to Canada to do that. But I love what you just raised is the notion that connects with intercondition and the no-sting of hosting and hospitality to yourself and to those who are closest to you, as a kind of spirit. So before we started this conversation, you gave me a couple of reference points. One was Priya Parker and the Art of Gathering, and another was Heather Plett and the Art of Holding Space. And now you've offered the Love Connection.
Lynda Kahn:Is that what it is? The Love Prescription? Well, I have some of our friends nearby Great, yeah, I have, and I didn't get them all. But it was interesting to think about this conversation and the kinds of things that intersect, because the idea of having practices and the idea of doing inner work and my background includes I studied to be a special education teacher always had an interest in folks who have been pushed to the margin and loved the kids I taught in the classroom, but really wasn't sure that that was the role for me. Long-term, though, I loved teaching, and then I encountered organizational change and systems theory and group dynamics and that continued. So that was a real early connection to facilitation, holding questions, paying attention to invisible dynamics and making them visible, and so that whole body of work was pretty interesting and so I could take a photo of some of the books.
David Hasbury:But not to be forgotten would be this, yes, absolutely great book Learning to Listen by Herb Leavitt.
Lynda Kahn:But the intersections of listening and holding space and some of the art of hosting practices that we've come, that we've experienced, where you just think about what are ways that people come together in large and small group conversations. What's the art of the question? So I'm sure there's one here. Okay, we'll just stay with the listening theme. Right, Julia Cameron's Listening Path.
David Hasbury:The Listening Path by Julia Cameron, and we will make a list of these books in the description for the podcast.
Lynda Kahn:So you'll be happy to know, when you grab the little love prescription book and listen to it on your next airplane ride, that there is yes, there's a workbook and journal, and I love a journal for the questions and prompts, because I really do think the art of the question is complete intrigue to me. I'm no master but I, you know, a good one when you come up against it.
David Hasbury:First of all, I just want to say thank you for this. It was fun, I enjoyed it and it actually one of the things that I'm learning and doing this. This is my fourth conversation for this kind of a and it's a practice and what I this getting to the place of feeling conversation is really what I would hope for and this was a. This was a lovely experience. I really want to thank you. Plus, I think it's just was it generated a huge amount of accessible experience, perspective and understanding, and I think that is available to people. So I really want to say thanks for that, thanks for listening. Stay tuned for future episodes exploring more aspects of what it takes to recreate a more inclusive and dynamic experience of us. Please subscribe to our podcast at your favorite podcast outlet.
