Spaces for Individual, Societal, and Planetary Healing Through Conflict: Across the Divide

Across the Divide is a process designed to facilitate and support healing spaces of empathic group conversation for individuals and communities around the world on the polarizing societal, political, and cultural issues of our time — where conflict and disconnection run deepest, and healing and connection are most needed.

The Across The Divide Process is a structured form of empathic group conversation that supports people to move toward conflict rather than away from it, to listen with an open heart across differences and divides, and speak with presence. The process helps individuals experience inner reconciliation, bridge interpersonal and cultural differences, and foster a sense of shared humanity and collaboration amidst opposing worldviews. It is rooted in the Mediate Your Life 3Chair Model for relating to conflict from perspectives and levels of empathic, mindful awareness (dual and nondual).

These conversation spaces are also “brave spaces” — that can require courage to both speak one’s truth and to hear the truth of others.

By learning and practicing skills of empathic communication in conversation on the societal and global challenges we face, people gain the capacity to transform these conflicts into new, life-serving ways of relating — within themselves, their communities, and the wider world.

The vision of holding these spaces is a world where empathic conversation is a foundation of community, government, and planetary wellbeing. A world where conflict is not about fragmentation and violence, but a path to growth, transformation, collaboration and innovation. It is to be part of the global movement rising — of individuals and communities building bridges across polarization and pain, cultivating relational intelligence, and co-creating a future in which everyone and all life matters.