experience council & public workshops

​The short answer:  Definitely.
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The long answer:  Council has been described as a personal transformative experience that has helped individuals reconnect with themselves, their families, and their co-workers. This is precisely why Beyond Us and Them offers Public Council Training Workshops periodically throughout the course of the year. Public workshops are designed to help you integrate council into your daily life.  

Private Professional Staff Trainings are also available for groups and organizations that have an interest and ability to bring our workshops to them.

The short answer: Anyone with an interest in learning a heart-based practice of listening and speaking.

The long answer:  Council Training Workshops are remarkable for the diversity of the participants who attend. Students, retirees, professionals, artists, teachers, therapists, activists, caregivers, politicians – the list of those drawn to the work of council is quite expansive. Consistently, workshops are populated by both those seeking a mindful practice to deepen their relationships and their capacity to hold space for community-building and healing, as well as those simply curious about learning something new about effective communication.  

Council is often experienced as a "remembering" of ways we used to come together, often long gone – family meals, show and tell, community gatherings, faith clubs – and sometimes it's a response to a nagging feeling that something has been missing from one's relationships at work or at home. The practice of council aligns with the desire to improve resilience and wellness and the call to build bridges.  

​Council Training Workshops offer an interactive and immersive introduction to the basic forms of council, as well as a grounding in the pedagogy, methodology and context for the practice.

Each workshop contains a unique mix of perspectives and interests and thus a lively consideration of how council might enter one's life and work. The endless applications to work and professional settings, community needs and interpersonal relationships are woven into each unique group. And, often, advanced practitioners of council return to a Fundamentals of Council Training (CT1) workshop with "beginner's mind," eager to revisit the subtleties and depth of the practice -- and the simple elegance of the form.

The short answer:  Come as you are!

The long answer:  Council is an opportunity to create a more intentional and open-hearted space for communication – whether that means listening to one's body and noticing how we respond to the world around us, finding ways to communicate with others that are skillful and authentic, or connecting with one's role in the community and one's sense of purpose.

Ideally, participants in Public Council Training Workshops bring open ears, an open mind, an open heart, and an open will, ready to listen without judgment, connect with their authentic selves and engage fully. Sharing in council is always consensual, never coerced or compelled. While the simplest of our interactions are often conditioned with self-judgment, pre-conceived ideas, and agendas, council is an opportunity to explore how much of that serves and how to regulate those filters.  

​The practice of council introduces a container in which the intention is to simply listen without judgment, speak what is true, be current and attentive, and recognize what is valuable to contribute. Council trainers often describe these intentions as: "listening and speaking from the heart, being spontaneous and lean."

The only requirement is a desire to be present and to practice those four intentions. In fact, more preparation than that – and more expectation of what the experience is all about – often inhibits the experience of participating in a Public Council Training Workshop.  

​No preparation or prerequisites are required for attending a Fundamentals of Council Training - CT1 workshop – but advanced workshops ask participants to fill out a letter of intent and reflect on what their experience of council has been since their initial introduction to the practice, what they've been encountering lately and where they see opportunity for growth.