PRACTICE GROUPS
Starting a Compassionate Listening Practice Group
What Is Compassionate Listening?
Compassionate Listening began with Gene Knudsen Hoffman, an international Quaker peacemaker who recognized that everyone in a conflict is wounded and needs to be heard. Leah Green, Founder of The Compassionate Listening Project — originally founded as the Middle East Citizen Diplomacy Project — began developing the practice through citizen diplomacy trips to Israel and the Palestinian territories, one of the organization's earliest projects. As a number of early facilitators stepped in to help shape the work and discern how best to teach it, our mission came into focus: spreading the practice of Compassionate Listening itself. Out of that shared experience came the five core practices we teach today:
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Cultivate Compassion
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Develop the Fair Witness
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Respect Self and Others
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Listen with the Heart
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Speak from the Heart
Compassionate Listening is a way of listening deeply to people who aren't often listened to closely, or well. It creates a safe space where people are free to express themselves fully, down to their deepest concerns — while listeners set their own opinions and judgments aside to be fully present, with an open heart, to the person in front of them.
Why Start a Practice Group?
Compassionate Listening is, first and foremost, a practice — it takes repeated, intentional effort to weave these skills into daily life. Convening a practice group is one of the most effective ways to build that capacity. A group gives you space to:
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Deepen your skills in the five core practices
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Create a container for intimacy, depth, healing, and connection
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Develop facilitation and leadership experience, with honest feedback from peers
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Reflect on how to apply Compassionate Listening personally, interpersonally, and in community
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Practice "sitting in the fire" with people and perspectives different from your own
Before You Begin
New to Compassionate Listening? We highly recommend taking our Intro to Compassionate Listening training before starting or joining a practice group — it gives you the grounding and shared language a group builds on.
Whatever stage you're at, keep Practicing the Art of Compassionate Listening — our "blue book" — close at hand. It's full of exercises and guidance that practice groups return to again and again.
Ready to Start Your Own Group?
We've put together a complete guide covering everything from gathering people and structuring your sessions, to giving feedback with care, to launching a Community Listening Project that brings deep listening to people in your wider community.
Questions? We'd love to help — reach out at staff@compassionatelistening.org.