The Principles

“Connect”

Essential Part of Being Human

Connection is an essential part of being human, it brings a sense of belonging, purpose, and meaning in life.

Feeling Close to Others

Human connection involves feeling connected to others and having relationships that support us as we live our lives.

Sharing How We Are

Human connection involves sharing emotions, thoughts and feelings with others, building empathy, trust, and mutual understanding.

“Listen”

Listening is a whole-body activity

“Attend not only to the person’s words, but to how they are said. This means observing the person’s face, body, voice, gestures, and taking the person in much more broadly than verbally”. (Eugene Gendlin)

Listening is an experience

“Experiential listening is an empathic, supportive, noninterfering way of saying back to a person the felt essence of his or her message and checking with the person to make sure it has been said back correctly” (Neil Friedman)

“Be-with”

Mutuality

We enter a relationship with others where we recognise the other person as an equal and unique being, just like ourselves (I – Thou, Martin Buber)

We cultivate mutual recognition and respect by bringing our own unique presence and engaging in a genuine dialogue with the other person.

The opposite of I-Thou, is where the other person is treated like an object and we move away from the seeing them as a human ‘just like me’.