Workshop materials

Files

• https://teddybeartalksupport.com/htss
• https://teddybeartalksupport.com/images/2/21/TBTSTopicSuggestions.pdf

Because they were there with me in the way that they were, it made possible my saying what I said, and it made possible all that came with getting to have said it.

Prompts to put in the chat before the breakout rooms open

• With any leftover time before the breakout rooms close, you could talk about other topics that you might talk about as a talker, or you can reflect on the habitual things you might have said if you weren't remaining silent as a teddy bear.

• With any leftover time before the breakout rooms close, you could talk about how you might want to start using Teddy Bear Talk Support sessions in your life. When? What for?

Talking with the talker afterward about what the talker shared

• At the end of their time, talkers can indicate if they don't want to have the teddy bear initiate any further discussion with the talker at any point in the future of what the talker talked about
• If no such indication was made, teddy bears who want to initiate further discussion of a talker's topic are asked to check with talkers to see if they welcome further discussion or not.
• As we will also emphasize when we cover how to ask honest, open questions, perhaps the most important aspect of our sessions is that we provide a place where there is no danger of having someone else's agenda imposed on you. So, we ask you to steer clear of providing suggestions, advice, or analysis to the talker.

Suggestions for what to talk about

You could talk about

• working on getting started with something
• a conversation you need to have
• establishing a new habit or pattern
• something that's bothering you
• a decision you need to make
• getting your head in the space for something
• a topic as if you were talking to ____________
• something you are working on writing
• a major life issue

Goals and Dreams: Share your short-term and long-term goals and dreams.

Home Improvement: Share ideas for improving your living space.

Upcoming Events: Talk about upcoming events or special occasions like birthdays, holidays, or parties. Discuss plans and preparations.

Work and Career Goals: jobs, career aspirations, and recent work experiences.

Ideas from books, Things you want to learn, Fitness and wellness, Food and cooking

The magic that the teddy bear can experience

Here is a piece by David Castro on Learning to Listen. It is called Empathy in 8 Minutes, and it is about how he experienced doing an exercise where you listen quietly for 8 minutes as someone tells you his or her life story.

When my partner started to tell his story, I wanted to ask a truckload of questions directing the conversation. I wanted to follow up on particular details, ask about things he hadn't mentioned, shortcut certain areas and learn more about others that interested me, like someone fast forwarding through a TV show.

After about three minutes, however, something remarkable happened. That incessant voice in my head began to quiet, and for the first time I began to listen at a deeper level. I observed my partner’s body language, soaked in his selected words and stopped trying to control the conversation flow. In the remaining five minutes, I learned something profound about the person speaking. I began to see and understand him for the first time. I was actually listening to him instead of focusing on my bundle of projections about him.

TBTS makes it easier for the experience to be about only one person's agenda at a time. Notice how natural it is to have the both surprising and not so surprising number of agendas that David Castro had as a listener in the first 3 minutes of this exercise.

Open, honest questions

Guidelines for asking open, honest questions

A good description of an honest, open question is that the person asking the question could not possibly anticipate the answer to it. Open questions are broad in scope and require responses that are more than just one or two words. An example of an open question is: “What would you say to someone in your shoes?” Ask questions for the purpose of helping the talker rather than for satisfying your own curiosity. These questions are usually brief and have no preamble or explanation.

Such questioning may sound easy. But many people have trouble framing questions that do not impose what they think on the speaker. This includes questions that are suggestions, advice, or analysis in disguise. Perhaps the most important aspect of our sessions is that we provide a place where there is no danger of having someone else's agenda imposed on you. This rule is simple, but abiding by it is hard work because so much of this goes on all the time. That's what we're used to. But, here we're asking you to try not to do any reassuring, diagnosing, providing any logical arguments, or evaluating, be it positive or negative. It can be very difficult to keep these out of the questions that we ask the talker. But, by doing so, we can create space for the talker to work through his or her own agenda.

The talker always has the right to choose not to answer a question. If you are the talker, please do not hesitate to exercise this right. You do not need to provide any explanation for why you have chosen not to answer the question.

Note that learning to ask honest, open questions is a skill that these sessions can help us develop. So, we are also holding the space for being patient and compassionate with ourselves as we experiment with coming up with honest, open questions. Questions fall on a continuum, and we’ll practice leaning as much as possible towards the open and honest end of the continuum with our questions. We’ll be looking for ones that Parker Palmer describes as questions that allow us to “hear each other into speech, into deeper and deeper speech.”