From co-host to main host: Hosting a first dialogue

Typically we see people participating in several dialogue sessions, after a while asking questions about the experience of hosting and what is happening in the circle of practitioners, to then step up to host dialogue sessions themselves; eventually it leads them to more participating in Life itself.

Framing & entrainment

One of the things to become aware of when practicing to become a good host for this kind of dialogue is the realization that the presence, the awareness, the embodiment that you hold when you are inviting people to join is of equal importance – or maybe more important – than the content of your welcoming and framing of the conversation. We mentioned before (in Basics…) that framing a meeting, or any kind of deeper inquiry, is of great importance: it puts everyone at the same starting space, it reminds everyone why we are gathered.

In the case of framing this specific dialogue practice it is really important that the content that you speak is carried by your presence in that moment. Your embodiment, your depth of presence will be experienced by the participants – in the beginning mostly unconsciously – but it will invite them in to speak from a similar depth. This dynamic has been named in the literature as entrainment.

Difference between facilitation and hosting

The big learning for most people is that what we call hosting a conversation is different from facilitating one. It comes out of the body of work that is called Art of Hosting. One of the elders would present us with the question: when you invite your family or some friends over for dinner to your house, are you hosting them, or facilitating them?

There is for sure care involved in both hosting and in facilitation, equally preparation and planning, and still the relation between you as the host and the group is different than when you are the facilitator. The main difference is that as a facilitator you stick with the goals and purpose as agreed with the group or the client; as a host your main job is to be present and to attend to what is really emerging – meaning in some cases to change the design in support of this. As hosts, we don’t attend to what is called group dynamics – as we leave that to the middle, and to the rim to hold it – but rather to what we might call the group field – the inner and subtle awareness of the complexity that is any group, and its potential.

Instead of being focused on what others in the circle say and do (or not), attention is fully grounded in the ongoing collective inquiry and the shared field of awareness. Hosting merely supports the conditions for emergence. We learn to see and to be constantly aware of the inter-affecting, to use a word from Eugene Gendlin, and the interrelated moving.

In essence, hosting these kinds of dialogues isn’t much different from participating, as we too join the dialogue. The difference is in the welcome and framing of both the session and the dialogue question, and in keeping an eye on the time.