These Touchstones for creating intentional space are a living document, adapted from Parker Palmer’s 11 touchstone and organically evolving within our HDS community. These are foundational to our restorative approach and in our cultivating a container of trust, relationship, and community.
Be present as fully as possible, take care as needed
Be as engaged as your capacity allows. Be here with your doubts, fears and failings as well as your convictions, joys and successes, your listening as well as your speaking. If you need to take space for yourself or seek out support, please do so.
What is offered in the circle is by invitation, not demand.
This one is incredibly important. We ask you to offer only what you want into this space. Although we may present guiding questions, please do not feel obligated to share unless you truly wish to.
Practice decolonized time; move at the speed trust.
While we may have an agenda for our time together, we approach our time organically, flexible to our individual and collective needs. We resist limited notions of time, productivity, and work, centering and prioritizing trust, relationships, and community.
Open what you can close, extend grace.
Be mindful of what you feel ready to share. Notice if something feels too raw or big to share right now. Honor your boundaries and hold yourself gently. Allow for grace for yourself and others as there may be times we unintentionally open something too difficult to close.
We cannot know for certain, until we are told.
We cannot know how someone self-identities or what that identity means to them without them telling us. Resist assumptions, engage in inclusive language, and be open to possibilities.
Speak your truth in ways that respect other people’s truth.
When speaking your truths, do your best to refrain from directive language and over generalizations. Be mindful of using “I” statements.
Take space, make space.
If you tend to be more silent in group settings, we encourage you to “take space” and share your thoughts and experiences; Conversely, if you tend to be very talkative in group settings, we encourage you to contribute and to also be mindful of pausing to “make space” for other voices.
Be mindful of the impulse to fix, save, advise, or correct each other.
This can be one of the hardest guidelines for those of us in the “helping professions” and/or committed to addressing issues of justice. If you feel this impulse while someone is speaking, try to listen deeply and make space for the person’s inner teacher. We are here to build together, learn and reflect.
It’s not about correction, but transformation.
We can be unpolished and use the language we have in the process of learning and growth, but we will also work collectively to examine and transform our language when a word or language causes harm. Be open to hearing from others if your language causes harm. Be open to sharing when someone’s language causes you harm. We commit to addressing harm with intention, through grace, rooted in love and compassion, and how this looks will vary depending on the circumstances. We will do this with care as we are all here to learn.
Learn to respond to others with honest, open questions.
Intentionally engage in listening. instead of counsel, corrections, etc. With such questions, we help “hear each other into deeper speech.” Fully be present and try to ask thoughtful questions to move the conversation in a forward direction.
When the going gets rough, turn to wonder.
When we take part in conversations like these, it is not always a natural or easy thing. If you feel judgmental, or defensive, ask yourself, “I wonder what brought her to this belief?” “I wonder what they’re feeling right now?” “I wonder what my reaction teaches me about myself?” Set aside judgment to listen to others—and to yourself—more deeply.
Attend to your own inner teacher.
We learn from others, of course. But as we explore poems, stories, questions, and silence in a circle of trust, we have a special opportunity to learn from within. Pay close attention to your own reactions and responses, to your most important teacher.
Trust and learn from the silence.
Silence is a gift in our noisy world, and a way of knowing in itself. Treat silence as a member of the group. After someone has spoken, take time to reflect without immediately filling the space with words.
Stories stay, lessons go.
While the essence of what is said can go with us, people’s experiences and what they share in a circle of trust will never be repeated to other people.
Know that it’s possible to leave the circle with whatever it was that you needed when you arrived, and that the seeds planted here can keep growing in the days ahead.