SHF Podcast, Episode 11, Creating Safe Space for Hard Conversations, with Cheryl Conner

In this episode of the Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast, hosts Miriah Feehery and Katherine Finley interview Cheryl Conner, an expert in fostering respectful dialogues and bridging differences. Cheryl, with a background as an attorney, mediator, teacher, economist, and entrepreneur, discusses David Bohm's dialogue model, which integrates quantum physics and consciousness to promote deep understanding. She explains the model's practical aspects, such as allowing silence and avoiding judgment, and how these dialogues impact relationships beyond the group setting.

The conversation emphasizes creating supportive environments for personal growth and understanding, acknowledging the diversity of individual learning stages and the influence of media on polarization. The speakers stress the importance of empathy, critical thinking, and open dialogue in navigating challenging interactions and fostering higher consciousness. They advocate for using collective experiences—like meditation and music—as tools for enhancing connection and understanding. The discussion concludes with a call for inner and outer transformation to inspire broader societal change.

You can be in touch with Cheryl at cherylconner100@gmail.com or see more about her work at  https://harmonicregeneration.org/

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. I'm Katherine Finley with Sovereign Heart Coaching and I'm here with my co host Miriah Feehery of Whole Being Counseling. We recognize that we're living through an intense time on our planet. There seems to be more polarization and division and less connected communication than ever before. We are here to change that. We intention to hold conversations in a container of love and authenticity. We believe that when humans come together from a heart centered place, we can not only understand one another, but we can get creative together, solving problems we couldn't solve alone. It's time to reimagine and rebirth a new world in which everyone's authentic voice is included in the harmonic orchestra of human voices, to create a world that works for all of us. Thank you for being part of this conversation, we're excited to have you. The Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. I'm your host, Miriah Feehery, with my co host, Katherine Finley. And today, we are welcoming a very special guest, Cheryl Connor. Cheryl is a friend of mine, and I've been really inspired by her work in her career and in the community and just inspired by how I've seen her move through the world. So I asked her to join us today and so glad she accepted. And just a little bit about Cheryl. She's really passionate about bringing people together across differences in order to have respectful dialogues to create both a sense of of shared community and understanding and that definitely resonates with our mission here at Sovereign Heart Frequency Podcast. She has been an attorney, a mediator, a teacher, an economist, an entrepreneur, and in order to usher in conscious collaborative initiatives, communities and organizations. Her approach calls participants to observe and transform their own inner processes as well as their reactions and relationships to others. Her dialogue work is directly impacted by her commitment to pursuing truth through her contemplative life, inspired by the wisdom traditions, and her creativity discipline, composing and performing music. And she does offer workshops and consulting to individuals and groups on dialogue, creativity, and self realization. So at the end, Cheryl, we'll get your contact info so our audience can find you if they're interested in any of that. We'd like to just start by, kind of building off of some conversation we've already had with you about your work with David Bohm and the David Bohm model of contemplation and connection. And maybe you can share with us what inspired you to, to study that work? And also, per audience, what that work even is? Because I'm sure not everybody knows. Yes, I'm happy to. Thank you both for having me, and I do feel very aligned with your mission, for sure. Well, I think my whole life I've been inspired to bring people together around some shared purpose and in the process empowering people to believe themselves capable of actually accomplishing the shared purpose. And I, you know, have done that since second grade when I organized the second grade girls to petition to be able to wear pants on the playground in the winter. It's just kind of a goofy example, but. It just goes to show you, I sort of came in with this purpose and have done that with all different kinds of groups, you know, women's groups, union, you know, worker groups, and probably, you know, really doing it in depth around the legal profession, because I was a leader in the nineties and the two thousands and bringing a spiritual and a holistic approach. To law and what that really meant was finding people ways to bring people together when there were broken relationships or conflicts and finding ways to see those challenges, not as just legal events, but as opportunities for transformation of people during that process. So this has been kind of a, steady commitment to bringing people together and also seeing the challenges of that. And most often I have found that the challenges of bringing people around shared purpose usually have to do with the inner triggers that we all have about ourselves and others. and about our own sense of empowerment and of how to relate to people. So beginning in the 90s and 2000s, I was a leader in mediation and in transformative mediation and collaborative law, things that were all about reshaping how we even looked at conflict, not as a negative thing, but as an opportunity for transformation. And so this has been kind of an ongoing interest and passion. Which has been shaped in different ways. I've also addressed it with music. I find that sometimes bringing people together around a shared listening to deep music and meditation, we can get to a deeper level together faster. To have meaningful conversations. That's kind of the life history that goes into this moment or the last few years when I've explored, you know, through meditation, there's all these interests in science and meditation and consciousness. So I've studied some quantum physicists and David Bohm. is, was a British PhD quantum physicist to work with Albert Einstein and others, and more specifically with a spiritual teacher named Krishnamurti. And they had dialogues for 15 years together around the relationship between science and consciousness. So I started studying David Bohm. There's a center in Italy that I've been taking courses from. And the Perry Center, what a great place to have a center. I wish I'd like go there for a course, but in the meantime, I mostly done it on, I've only done it online. So David Bohm was very touched by exploring consciousness and also by observing the challenges and the friction among peoples in culture and how that affected everything. And he really wanted to get to the bottom of like, how could we foster the kind of, Yeah. understanding and harmonious relationships that he wanted to, that he was envisioning, as you guys have with your mission for this, you know, podcast. So he wrote a book called On Dialogue, which is quite philosophical and kind of rambly. I mean, a lot of visionaries are really, you know, you have to spend some time cutting through the interdependent thought that weaves through it. But essentially you can derive from his book and others who follow his work have derived a template, a template for dialogue, which creates a safe container. which honors some of the wisdom that he gained from quantum physics and consciousness, but at the same time is quite practical. I always like that. I like it when it's You know, visionary beyond the 3D but also practical, you know, and so that's the context and the model here's just a few things I don't want to give too long an answer because I want to hear your questions but So, the template is that people come together with the intention to really be in meaningful dialogue. There are some rules. We will meditate or contemplate and share our reflections on a particular question for a time period. Usually it's an hour, but I actually like an hour and a half or two hours, even though some of the groups are doing an hour. And so you meditate on this question and the rules are. There's 10 seconds of silence between each person's contribution. Okay. Now that that's big, really changes the rhythm, the rhythm of communication gives time for everybody to really reflect on what the last person said. To cut any habits of just jumping in, right, and slowing the whole thing down so self observation of others and self can be enhanced. The other rules are no trying to persuade anyone of your point of view. Now that's big because you may not take, you may take it for granted. We're in a culture where often there's an assumption that once you get into a conversation about politics, for example, that you're supposed to be convincing the other person about why you're right. So, there's no persuasion. Similarly, on the other side, there's no judgment. So, if you say, the sky is green, even if I see it as blue, I'm not going to judge. I'm just going to say, well, my experience is blue. So, freeing up conversations on difficult topics with no judgment is very big. That's a very hard one for most people to cut. It's so habitual. The other one is no defending. Okay, no defending. Somebody doesn't like what you have to say, they might even allude to how they don't like it. You don't defend. There's no need to defend. Your sovereign voice deserves its expression without having to defend it. That's very big. And the other thing, contrary to the way I've just answered your question, which is in a long form, brevity. So we encourage people in these models to be brief, realizing that in the world of conversation, we want there to be space for everyone to have time to be heard, to express themselves as an end in itself, self expression as an end in itself, and mutual understanding. as an end in itself. So that's kind of the template. I don't know if you want to reflect on that at all. Such medicine for our time. I wish these groups were going on, you know, on every street corner. I'm curious about how you've noticed participating in these groups or other people that, if you've led these groups, people that participated, how it impacts their life outside of the group is such a beautiful container. And then you leave the container and you're at your Thanksgiving table or talking to a friend. Do you have any comments on that? How has it impacted you outside of the groups themselves? Well, I'll, I'll speak to what I hear from others and then my own, This is really, in a way, a contemplative practice, right? and I'll tell you about one other aspect of it too, but I think many people don't have this experience in their daily lives of so much presence. And of so much deep listening. So I think it's a fresh experience for many people. And then it gives them something to point to like, Oh my God, I wonder if any of that is possible in my, in my daily life. So I think there's that freshness of experience. Many people talk about having, being really touched by the depth of connection you feel. Once you have released all these patterns, habitual patterns of basically separation, right? So As for me, you know, this is a passion of mine, right? So I'm playing with it all the time. And, in conversations with people, I completely disagree with blah, blah, and seeing like, how much can we stretch it? And I think it can go far. First of all, I think people just being aware of speed, you know, and how many people are on autopilot when they're speaking, you know, and it's like not a kind of way to move forward in communicating. I think that it's almost easier in one of these containers than it is over a dinner party, over a dinner table, even if you're well trained in it, as I am, you know, just because I'm testing this out all the time with people who I think might be able to pull it off in a fresh way outside of the container, you know, I have a lot of experience. And it's good to hold one's expectations of what's possible in informal settings. Because right now in this, as you use the word in your mission, it is a really polarized time and the media and politicians and so forth are accelerating kind of this polarization. So even good, well meaning people who usually are good hearted are like caught up in various mind loops. That make it hard to penetrate, you know, so, it's a both and like you can make a difference, and there may be miracles, but not always, you know, one of the things that this kind of presupposes is that people have a real desire to have some harmony, but also are actually curious about other people. Some people are not curious about their own inner work or curious about others, and that's fascinating to me. I've been asking the question to people all over, like, so what do you think enhances curiosity about the other? The other's inner world on these issues that are dividing us, you know, it's a big question as therapists, you might have kind of interest. Well, my, my son's girlfriend, who's a credible R and D scientist in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I asked her because she runs a think tank of our basic R and D people. And I said, Katie, what do you think about what enhances curiosity? Certainly scientists who are doing basic R& D must have a lot of curiosity. And she said, stress is a real obstacle to curiosity. If people are stressed out, they can't go into a relaxed state of mind that enables them to be curious. That's one of the answers. I think some people are innately curious, like I have been since I was a little girl, it drove my mother crazy that I was constantly curious about everything and, I think Mariah has a daughter kind of like that. And so there's an inherent, and I think that we are potentially all very curious and that the education system sometimes thwarts it. by valuing certain structured kind of mandatory learning as opposed to enabling people to follow their curiosity so they understand that following your curiosity is a strength and not just a distraction to someone else's agenda. Yeah, that's big. You're, you're taught in Most public institutions, how to retain information, actually how to learn and be curious and inspired. Yes. Well, and I do think that the lockdowns and this whole period we've had of extreme political stress and collective stress, connect it with my. Katie's comment about stress. I do think that a lot of people are more stressed out than they were before the lockdowns. I mean, there was always stress, but there's kind of a PTSD almost from what we've all been through in the last few years, which I think may undermine some people's curiosity or interest in the other, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And from a, mental health standpoint, When you have someone whose nervous system is in fear of even, even subtle fear like stress or anxiety, then= their brain really isn't able to operate in the prefrontal cortex area where curiosity lives, where mindfulness lives. Hmm, true. It's really kind of, More into the, the hindbrain sort of primal urges. And so when people are doom scrolling and looking for information, they're not really looking to explore all of the possible options. They're looking for someone to, to help them, to tell them what to do. It's a very vulnerable place to be when you're afraid you really, you want help. You want help from the outside in and not so much help from the inside of Of contemplation and and kind of working with your nervous system to stay grounded and able to receive inner guidance and openness. it's really, like you said, an unfortunate, turn of events, I guess. I mean, like you said, it was always there. People have always had times of stress and maybe kind of leaning forward. Away from curiosity and more into polarization, but it definitely got a lot worse when, a global crisis was handed to the people and, the authorities sort of took advantage of our instincts to, to find help and to be told what to do and, and orient in that way, instead of helping everyone stay calm and grounded and healthy. Right. Right. Right. I want to follow up again on Catherine's question about how we bring some of the benefits to the daily life. The other part of the template I didn't tell you about is in the last 25 percent you turn off the time clock and you have a conversation. Is anyone willing to share what went on in your inner life as you were listening to the others? And this is voluntary, you don't have to share, but if you feel like sharing, I was so mad at her when she said, blah, blah, blah, or I was just thinking how stupid she was when she said, la dee da, right? And and I might even be somebody, I was at a conversation recently where someone who was a thoughtful, kind, good hearted person found himself truly mad, mad, mad at me for a very neutrally stated observation about politics. And he was shocked at how angry he was at me. And I've known him for many, many years. And he said, wow. Boy, am I angry when you say that. And I was, you know, grateful that he said that, right? And he's probably curious enough to look at why he was so mad at me. He was so mad. But the other thing I do to kind of enter, and I may actually, I don't know how many of these conversations I'll be provoking in the future because it does take a lot of energy, you know, sometimes. Sometimes. And I don't know if it's always worth it. One of the invites is, you know, we're all in different silos these days, depending on what news reports you listen to, you have a whole set of facts about fed filters, about how you perceive what's going on. So sometimes depending on what. Your news you're reading, we could be in different worlds. So I often say, so what sources do you follow? And then I'll say, I follow. These things. And so then if the person says, the sky is green, I can say, well, you know, I've been reading sources that say the sky is blue. And here are some examples of, you know, people that I respect who say this. So sometimes it kind of eases it to make it less personal to say, you know, we follow different sources, so that really matters. You know, And then sometimes I go into my cheerleader aspect. I'm really a fan of the founding fathers. And I, I set the declaration of independence to music because I love it so much. You know, all men are created equal, endowed by their God with particular, you know, Inherent interests among these were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Right. So I might go into one of my enthusiastic, this is why we're here in America. Isn't it cool that we can all have these different points of view and be self expressed. And so sometimes that helps like get people to see that this is part of a higher process. You know, we're actually energizing the whole point about why this country was founded. Absolutely. That's, I think, more and more. Getting, swept under the carpet these days as the drumbeat for censorship gets louder, and people are being told that ideas other than their own are dangerous. And so to remind people with enthusiasm, I love how you demonstrate that you share your enthusiasm of the founding fathers and The freedom of speech as one of the many wonderful principles that this country was founded on as something we should celebrate and, I don't know if you've had personal experience, but I would imagine that it could really kind of break up the, the sharp edges of disagreement when you can just celebrate the differences. It does. It does. I'll tell you the other thing that I tried recently that was in a dinner table conversation, not a dialogue, was I said, here's what my core values are, and this is why it affects where I'm coming from. Like in this particular case, you know, I was saying, you know, my core values for our society is how to, free speech is number one for me, free speech is number one. And then I said, and also caring for those in need around us, so I would want a party who cared about, you know, it ended up being around partisan lines, this particular one, a party that cares about working class people. And, I think sometimes, cause we were getting off into kind of a disagreement about. What I would call a minor issue, but this other person thought it was a major issue. So I said, well, I guess, you know, this issue is on the top. It sounds like it's on the top of your core value list. And that kind of diffused it in a way, right? Because then we could say what we're really arguing about is because at a dinner table you do still argue, you know, as opposed to in the dialogues and, I'm happy to know what your core values are. Because then it's, it's down to the heart of you, right? Part of what the heart of you is when you care about something is it's triggering your core values, right? Right. And so much of what I have noticed about disagreements is that actually when you get down to the core values, they're almost all the same. And so if we can really get underneath the, do it this way, do it that way, and really just figure out what the core value is underneath it, then we agree so much more often. Exactly. And see the humanity and the, the interconnection a lot easier. Right. Right. The person in front of us becomes a human again. Right. Well, the other thing that these dialogue groups do is they start off picking questions. They always give the group three questions to choose from and you vote on which question. But the beginning questions are things like, what do you think is beauty? Right? What does forgiveness mean to you? you can start off with things that are really just more about life or like, or the, the next layer could be what brings joy to you, things that get people warmed up to the rules, the rules of freeing themselves from the competitive opinion world, the opinion machine, just sort of breaking the habit of opinions, defending, persuading, arguing, you know, that's a big unravel, and, you know, as therapists unraveling habits is like, it could be a lifetime project for something. So you warm up on these easier questions and then Only then would you get to, like, I was asked recently, what do you think about Roe v. Wade, right, being, overturned, and, you know, I'm a lawyer, so I probably have read all those cases more than the person that asked me the question, but that was really not the level at which this was going to be handled, right? So I think one of the other things for the dinner table, Catherine, back to your question, in our daily life is appreciating. That we're all in different places. Not only do we have different things we want to say, but developmentally, we're at different levels of personal evolution and it's okay where everybody is like, it's okay that this friend went on to automatic pilot talking about an issue and didn't even give me time to respond. Even though that was the point of the whole conversation, it's okay. If someone's that speedy and they haven't learned to slow their mind down yet, to really. Be able to do this. It's okay. You know, that's a big acceptance, and the other major thing I think is, I mean, I've been blessed with a good education and a lifetime of learning and, you know, not everybody has that. So some shifts in perception and habits of thinking are really a very big function of what we've been exposed to, I heard Chris Hedge, Hedge is one of my favorite journalists, expert in the Middle East recently in a fabulous two hour Q& A on his podcast, say he realized that most of the time when people disagreed with him about the Middle East situation, they just really had almost no education about any of it. And you know, and that's okay, he wasn't even sounding judgmental. It was just the reality. And sometimes as educated people, as therapists, there's whatever lawyer I've been, et cetera. we take for granted, how much we've already perused. So part of it is really acceptance, like, okay, people are at different levels, personal evolution, different places in their learning curve. And and that's okay. And there's not a or worse, right? And you know, something I'm really feeling in my own system as I think about these groups, these bone groups is they can be a real resource for our nervous system because Mariah and I talk a lot about doing our own work so we can show up to hard conversations and take care of ourselves, take care of our. nervous systems within that, because only then can we come from curiosity. And it feels like these groups, the container is to help everyone do that. And so there's a co regulation going on. Good point. I hadn't thought about that, but that's definitely true. That is definitely. And then we get to carry that with us outside of that. So. Yeah. Yes. And that does, pull up, one of David Bohm's understandings is that if all of us in a circle are concentrating on the question, what is beauty, right? We're all actually now on that question, the word beauty, the thing beauty, and in the field, we're all amplifying that word. And we're united in our amplification of that word. And that creates its own field, and the person who's facilitating the quality of their consciousness influences that as well, it's yes, it's a safe place, it regulates, I wouldn't have thought of it quite that way, I would just say it enables you to go together, to a deeper level of consciousness or awareness. And there's my Tibetan Buddhist teaching rising to the surface there to say that, right, and it's all connected, because. When your nervous system is regulated, then you do have access to opening to those high levels of consciousness that are, mostly in your, in your forebrain. And unfortunately, those faculties get pretty shut down when we're. Scared and angry and trapped and disempowered. Yes. And I would add to your list of things that you just said would, that there's a heavy level of, narrative training going on, right? That the news and media and government have a lot of storylines that are= penetrating our collective consciousness. And some of those are repeated so much that it creates a certain, mind training because whatever we focus on gets reinforced in our consciousness, right? And that's really a lot more powerful than I ever really understood, it really is, it kind of intimidates, it intimidates you. Say, say more. Intimidates me because it's not just this individual that I'm interacting with, it's the force of a, several billion dollar propaganda machine moving through them, right? A 24 hour news cycle, reinforcement moving through them, and, and so, it's harder to connect human to human and feel that safety of, oh, you, you see me, you respect my individuality, it's more, it's Kind of trigger attack, mentality. And I find that when I'm around, specific family members who I know have, the talking points and I can hear them sort of parroting what's on the news,, I tend to, just gently back out when I ever get to a place where we might go head to head, because I just don't have a lot of. A lot of confidence that, we'll get to a place of humanity in these really heated topics that they're like you experienced with your friend. I don't know why I'm so angry when you say that, right? Cause I've tried maybe being, calm and factual and rational in conversations like that. And it's never really gone anywhere that was in my mind. Where I wanted to go of just being heard and understood and seen as a human being with differing opinions. And that's, we can all get along kind of a thing. It's more just like, Oh, now we're going to react. It's such a natural thing to want and expect and, and it does feel unattainable in certain situations now. I mean, because I, you know, I had all those years where I was a mediator, you know, where you have to sit and be present with real conflicts, you know, and I know how to hold a space and be okay, take care of myself. And. So I know in that sense, I had a certain kind of training that other people didn't have just by virtue of where I landed, but even when I gave another friend the space to kind of really give it to me, you know what I mean? And I wasn't triggered because it doesn't trigger me anymore. I nonetheless was tired. it wasn't triggering me. I no longer need anybody to confirm or validate any point of view. I have. I'm 71 years old. You know, I'm my own girl, but it's tiring. And so then you really have the question. Does it serve a purpose? And is it better to just be having compassion for this person who, you know, is obviously got a train going on in their brain? there's a choo choo track and it's just like going, have compassion because that can't be feel good. That can't feel good to have that choo choo train going, right? On the other hand, I don't think it's an, it means we have to have those conversations.. I think what's for the highest and the best, you taking care of yourself with the family member honoring and still holding in our hearts a day when we can all be free on the inner level, as well as the outer level, right? Holding that as a possibility. I don't know. what are your thoughts? You know, I'm thinking of, as you both speak, Dr. Hawkins consciousness scale and the increased power in the consciousness of like a David Bohm group where everyone is there with common meaning and intention and there's listening. Even if no one agrees with anything anyone else says, it doesn't matter. The consciousness. Is that this whole new level? Yeah. And that's where the power is so maybe it's not about those dinner table conversations all of the time. Not that there can't be medicine in those, but, but really putting ourselves in those containers. How do we create those containers? That it's not about agreeing, disagreeing in this different level of consciousness. That's what we need. Exactly. You, you nailed it. And of course that's true too in the world of meditation, right? You may have thoughts going back and forth, but if you're in the higher consciousness where you just see the thoughts and the triggers and the emotions and everything, and you're in a place of ease, they just sort of, they dissolve, right? Ultimately, and so yes, that's exactly right, that we can come together, united by this question of beauty or forgiveness, see if those examples, and, but in the field beyond. Like that Rumi the poet quote, I'll meet you in the field. I'll meet you there. So what you're doing is you're meeting people in the field beyond opinions. No bond thoughts. Yes. It feels really inspiring and I'm, I'm aware just self reflecting on my own life, how I haven't done that. I don't do that. I'm, in community where there's very similar views, which I think is easy in this world to do that. Like you said, we're kind of siloed off and, and I'm really inspired to create the container in an in person group setting. I mean, I think in a way we're trying to create that sort of container here. But for me to put myself in, in those containers, I just feel the expansiveness of it, the potential of it. Yes. It is surprising. I've also seen it happen when I've done these music and meditation events, which I've only done a few of here in Asheville. I did them a lot in LA and Vermont, but where I would channel, receive, received music, and then we'd go into meditation. The music, we all came together the way we came around a question of what is beauty or what is forgiveness. All of our minds pointed together to the deep listening to the music and then the meditation. And in that, as a similar effect, and some people who had never even meditated before, you know, who were not Wu in any way, went, went to a deep place and had experienced that kind of spaciousness, which they never had before. So I think in a way, Bohm is using dialogue in the way you can use other things. That bring our minds together to a common point in consciousness. You know, in a way that a lot of churches do say, you know, a lot of religious ceremony does that, you know, with mantra and singing hymns and, you know, where there's a new field created with our commonly doing X or Y and we drop our other, drop our other concerns. Yeah. Yeah. I have a strong craving for that more in, in my life too. And I love. The reminder that we can achieve that through through common sound or movement or meditation stillness and have these these profound feelings of connection and conscious awareness in those realms to and Yeah, somehow it still just feels really important to me to be able to and intellectually too. And so I wondered too, if people came out of a shared experience like Wheel A musical sound healing or, or something and then gradually went into some kind of divisive topic if there would be an ability to be more open and have more deeper listening and and have that holding of humanity and allowance of unique individual differences involved. Yes, I do think you're right. It can, it really does enhance. Deeper listening, you know? And what what is really good about the dialogue model is that you know, your therapists, the habitual patterns of mind where thought and emotion are connected, that's a deeper thing to dissolve. You might be able to listen more deeply. But to really to dissolve a habit like that, it takes a more sustained, unless you have some really big magical shamanic experience or mushrooms or something. But I think, you know, dissolving those habitual patterns. It's more like you have to drip water on it a long time. You know, you have to see, oh my God, I just got angry at my friend Cheryl. How could I be that angry? Like, and then notice the next time it comes up and maybe it's, you've titrated it a bit and it's a little lower and you kind of keep catching it. So there is something about the dialogue model working on mind, mind and its patterns. So I think, I think it's a both and, you know, and it feels like there's. The need to to want to break open those patterns, or at least that's a huge help. If that's If there's an intention there to do that, This feels a little more on the intellectual route. My husband and I were talking this morning we have an almost eight year old daughter and we were just talking about how to raise her in regards to not just like You know daddy and my views are the views that are correct, right? But to think critically and what does that look like? And i've heard You Bobby Kennedy talked about, growing up in his family at the dinner table, there would be active debates. And so my husband and I were talking about how that could be really effective in helping us cause you might have to be debating a view you don't agree with at all. And how do you really get curious enough to find out? What in the world, people with that view believe to then debate it as if it's yours, right? And I just love that. Right. Well, debate club, you got to know if your school has debate club. I mean, that's one experience, but you can model it at the dinner table that you definitely can model, you know, like, let me see, why would people believe blah, blah, blah. And then it kind of becomes, a game you know, there's something playful about it. Other thing that I've always come to a lot of times people will say, do you know how people feel on both sides? You know, having been an explorer and intellectual subjects of all kinds over the years, I would say there's almost never just two sides, I mean five, so you know, people want to boil it down and make it easy, but whatever you can do to help your daughter, see multiple sides. And of course, partly that's how travel and cultural exploration helps because you can see how other people have made very different, choices about how to be human and how to have relationships and how to be in community together. And I think that helps people have that. I mean, one of the things that I really hope for, I mean, we were in a very amazing time where, So many institutions are falling apart, or the truth is being shed on what's really governing them, etc. And it's easy to be very, discouraged in a way. But what I love about the dialogue in this respect, is that I hold a view in my heart for the full realization of the original American spirit in our world. I, I really hold that. I mean, I hold that. Every day, I hold that. And so, in these dialogues, We're in a way, we're just creating little microcosms of the future, of the world where this is true, you know, where we all respect one another. Everyone's voice is equally important and how we speak matters, how we listen matters and I can live in a world where I can still do this because it holds hope for the future. If we can't do this, how would we do this on the macro level? I mean, this is the only hope for the macro level is the micro level, and I want to have hope, so it's hopeful in that way. Yeah. That's so inspiring just the example that you, that you give just from the way you live Of working so hard to, to stay hopeful, to stay curious, to stay open to other people's processes. And yeah, it looks, it looks good from where I'm sitting. I feel inspired to commit myself more to those practices. And yeah, I would love to not get triggered when someone says something I consider. Extremely outlandish. Or someone's looking at you with hate in their eyes because of something you just said about some politician. Neither of you has ever met. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yes. Have a lot of hope too, more than ever for humanity. Yeah. I don't even know if it's all explainable, but I think part of it is that, myself over the past four to five years, people that I put into a particular category and judged and look down upon in certain ways like that broke open for me and I really now see my connection to these folks that I didn't before. And. Beautiful. Yeah. And so, so I think my experience and I know a lot of people have had that experience as well over this really intense few years. And so that gives me a lot of hope. These very uncommon alliances that, that would have never formed. And it is connected to values underneath, it feels like. Do you know what you, can you, do you attribute that to anything in particular or just your own personal spiritual evolution or what has supported that shift for you? I do attribute some of it to my curiosity, which I really am glad that that's, I think just a quality I came into the world with. And Mariah and I have talked about in a previous podcast I, Grew up progressive and card carrying Democrats and was very proud of that. But I realized probably in the COVID era, that there were these assumptions I feel like I had been fed to make about other people that that were not fair and were not true. like all people of color should be Democrats or else they're, you know, they're clueless. Which is like preposterous to me now, that I would have that, that belief. And so in that, it opened this whole world up to me Oh, there's this whole section of the world that I had just kind of. judged to be a certain way that, that it's not, none of that's actually true. Yeah. Yeah. So, it was my curiosity, my ability to, to be able to, listen to different viewpoints, conservative African Americans, for example, or like, huh, what? Let me understand that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful for that. And there is, you know, with the polarization, there is so much more out there now in the media of independent voices that are like, I'm not on this side or this side. And that's, that feels lovely to have lots of different voices to check in with and then, and then see what resonates, see what doesn't. Right. Yeah, I noticed the same thing more and more when I am on social media, I see people who are what I call political orphans, maybe they can relate to a little bit of both, and not relate to a lot of both sides that we're only allowed to have two of, right. And so I feel actually kind of. a new sense of belonging to this no man's land of political orphan and like, when, when are we going to have, there's a lot of us now, we can have a place at the table. But also I kind of struggle in myself sometimes just through observation of my inner processes. I'll notice a part of me that kind of wants to just swing the pendulum and, and totally reject everything, from one side. And, and it just doesn't work anymore. I just can't. I can see, of course, like I said, so many human values are universal, and so I, now can just see that, that I share values with all Americans, regardless of their political party, to some degree. But yeah, I do kind of have to watch that part of me that just wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater and, and, and, you know, go no contact with my, my ex political affiliation. But then I realized no, that doesn't work for me. Yeah. Right. Well, it's so great. You can catch yourself, right? Because catching yourself is. beginning to freedom. I mean, and ultimately it is an inside job, it's an inside job for all of us. I mean, I do believe we're ready for kind of a revolution of perspectives on our nation. And I think it really does require this inner revolution, which you're just all conceding you're already a part of. And so, you know, there's a part of me because I'm a lawyer and I still could go defend whistleblowers and all that kind of stuff. I know how to do that stuff, you know, but I'm feeling like this work. Creating little microcosms of clarity and consciousness and hope for a true democracy at a future time, that's the seed. That's the seed that's necessary for us to really, I mean, I get emotional. I really am so connected to those founding fathers and mothers. That was why they came here, to have this kind of freedom of spiritual and religious exploration because they understood that that was so core, that it's all an inside job. The recovery of our enlightened democracy, or the recovering of a democracy, and then maybe an enlightened democracy is. an inside job. So your eight year old at the dinner table learning critical thinking and your lovely daughter who's just she could create an enlightened society for sure at some point. This is important work. This is the hope for our nation. Really. Well, thank you so much, Cheryl for for holding that hope inside yourself and sharing that in the way that you do. And with the space you hold. It's been really, really beautiful to have this conversation with you. Where can people find you? Well, I live here in Asheville, outside Asheville, North Carolina. You can email me at CherylConnor100 at gmail. com. And if you do that, I can send you to the three different websites I have, one doing the dialogue work, one doing my spiritual advising, and another doing music. I compose music for weddings and people. For the fun of it. So Cheryl Connor, 100 at Gmail. And there are websites out there, Cheryl Connor, music. com, Cheryl Connor, consulting. com. And one called harmonic regeneration, which is blending all three of those, but that's still a work in progress. So I would love to share more with you guys and others who want to have trainings or workshops and how to do this. And Or to participate just for fun to see what you think of it. So thank you so much for having me on ladies. And I really appreciate it. I love your mission and I hope people have benefited from learning about this. It was such an honor Cheryl. Thank you. Bye everybody. Goodbye. Thanks so much. Music