Tell us your definition of hosting
If you’ve hosted a Conversation Cafe in the past, or a salon or a dialogue or a Socrates Cafe, help us tell others what the hosting experience is like. Here’s some ways I’ve described it:
A host is curious about what others think, has the courage to ask and the humility to listen.
A host makes community through making safe spaces for conversation.
Over at http://victoriaroserobin.blogspot.com I wrote a longer essay about hosting where I said:
I host conversations - at cafes, in my home, with strangers - because it’s who I am, not what I do. I can’t help it. I am always hosting. I am always inviting others to make meaning with me. I am always asking questions and listening to the answers, always wondering what others think and feel.
Now you. What is hosting to you? What does a host do? Not do? Say? Not say? Feel? Help others imagine what it would be like to host.
Hosts respect everyone’s responsibility for their own contribution to reality and their willingness to adapt it.
A host enjoys bringing people together to share their perspectives on everyday life with others.
A host assists in reestablishing the connection between a guest and his/her reality through conversations.
Being a host, to me, is acting as a catalyist to enable the group to create “the magic in the middle” — the meanings that this group can create together on this occasion.
To me, hosting is providing an environment where I can learn empathy and share my thoughts and feelings with others. (I define empathy as really understanding what and why a person thinks and feels the way(s) that they do.)
To me, being a host is helping to create (creating) a space, a container wherein all participants feel safe enough to be themselves, speak their truth from their hearts, and listen with heart, speak with deep respect for the other, even if their ideas are wildly opposed. This deepens over time.
For me, hosting has been about inviting people to come to a hospitable space, where we all learn and practice to deeply listen and to offer our own experience and wisdom, doubts and questions. It seems a vital earth-saving skill.
To me, being a host means letting go of my expectations and allowing the magic to happen.
Hosting is, for me, a chance to connect more deeply with others and to continue learning about life. I enjoy participating in the dance of dialogue as multiple meanings appear and unexpected insights illuminate our realities.