#1252 - Conversations
Judith E. Glaser left us an important legacy through her work on Conversational Intelligence.
As she wrote in her book, "To get to the next level of greatness depends on the quality of our culture, which depends on the quality of our relationships, which depends on the quality of our conversations. Everything happens through conversations!"
These days I'm reading Community by Peter Block, and he too emphasises the centrality of conversations in the creation of relationships and thus communities.
As you know, in the book Subtraction that I wrote with Sujith Ravindran and Elliot Leavy, we use a model inherited from the ancient Vedic science of Pancha Koshas that recognises us as multi-layered beings. A unique creative potential is associated with each of the layers of awareness recognised by this model.
Somehow this morning, my reflection on the importance of conversations interweaved with the five layers of Pancha Koshas, and I realised that, depending on the layer of awareness from which we are operating, we give life to different types of conversations.
These five types are very much inspired by the three types of conversation defined by Judith E. Glaser in her book.
When we operate from the Red Layer, the grossest of them all, we are not even having a real conversation. It's all about survival. We give and receive orders. That's it. When we operate from a slightly more subtle layer, the Orange one, we are driven by emotions. Our conversations are charged, and we need to feel good. In these conversations, we are prone to blame and point fingers. They can also help us release energy and tension, clearing the path from the obstacles getting in the way of a working relationship. When conversing from the Yellow Layer, we rely primarily on our cognitive intelligence; we exchange data, facts and reasoning. Our underlying intention is to influence others and establish our position. When we shift to the more subtle Blue Layer, we are driven by the need to realise the potential of both parties and of the conversation itself. It's a co-creative conversation in which we engage our intuition to explore what is possible. Finally, when we operate from the causal layer, the Violet one, the conversation flows through us as part of a never-ending universal conversation. The conversation is already there; we simply join it.
All types of conversations are essential depending on the context. However, due to our existing conditioning and blocks, we may be unable to access all layers and their faculties and find ourselves stuck, entering conversation from a layer of awareness that won't help us get the best out of any conversation.
All of this is to say that if you want to have a better conversation, take the time to check from which layer of awareness you are showing up.