healing divides
starts with conversation.
Living Room Conversations are a simple way to connect across divides - politics, age, gender, race, nationality, and more.
WATCH: Grover Norquist, Marianne Williamson, and other politically diverse leaders join in a Living Room Conversation on “Moving Forward Together” after the 2020 Election.
Getting at the heart of what we share in common with one another, these conversations have powerful, positive impacts across society – including a sense of respect, understanding, and even friendship in unexpected places!
The backbone of a Living Room Conversation is a conversational model developed by dialogue experts in order to facilitate connection between people despite their differences, and even identify areas of common ground and shared understanding.
Within this model, we have developed over 100 conversation guides on all sorts of topics that can otherwise be tense to talk about with friends, strangers, and even loved ones of differing backgrounds and political persuasions.
explore our work
What's New?
Living Room Conversations LIVE is a monthly livestreamed conversation series on timely topics with all sorts of different people. Register for upcoming livestreams, watch the latest, or check out our past livestreams here.
Writes Living Room Converstaions’ Executive Director Justine Lee: “Engaging with perspectives from Libertarian anarchists, moderate Democrats, Constitutionalists, Democratic Socialists, Trump supporters and folks without a strong political identity has not weakened my own beliefs. Rather, this exposure has helped me realize what issues matter most to me.”
Trending Topics
During the pandemic, there has been an increase in reports of anti-Asian violence and discrimination with a majority of incidents being reported by women. Many attribute the rise in violence and discrimination to linking the Coronavirus with China and people of Chinese descent. As we work through what can be a painful, paralyzing, and uncertain time, it can be helpful to hold space to reflect on what we have experienced, to verbalize the questions we think are important to be asking, and to share our concerns and hopes for the AAPI community.
Political ads and media are fanning our anxiety about the other side and threatening the very fabric of our communities. Can we engage with generosity and lead with our deepest values at this time of heightened political polarization? Can we be peace builders?
Upcoming Events
How to Organize & Host your own Living Room Conversations
How to Host a Conversation About Race
Hosting Best Practices
How to Organize & Host your own Living Room Conversations
Press
How to answer Joe Biden’s call for unity without compromising your values
Like many progressives, I cringe when I hear the word “unity.” In his Inaugural Address, President Joe Biden told Americans: “This is our
Ripe for change: We have prime opportunity now to protect American democracy
Now is our best chance to scale up the efforts of organizations working to bridge divides because so many people are feeling the
America’s future is dark unless we start working together and caring about each other
It has become normal to disrespect and even dismiss the humanity of people we don’t agree with. This is dangerous and at odds
Videos
What a Living Room Conversation looks like
Two conversation hosts with different viewpoints each invite one or two others to join together for structured conversation on a specific topic. (We have a lot of structured topic guides to choose from, or you can create your own).
The Conversation Agreements and structure help assure a good experience and allow participants to get to know each other.
Living Room Conversations can happen anywhere: our homes, coffee shops, conference spaces, churches, and more and more online via video chat.
What People Are Saying
Newsletter
Sign up for our weekly note in your inbox here!
Celebrate Juneteenth with LRC
This week is National Week of Conversation and to get you geared up, we thought we’d drop a couple of helpful tips. 1. Absorb not just observe. Quite
June Overview Monthly Email
JUNE Photo from our own Leah Spitzer So far this year we have had 6,939 downloads of our conversation guides – and that’s only the downloads!
May 13, 2021 Newsletter
From our Healing Guide: Have you been part of a healthy, healing community? What was that like? Respond via Facebook! The Christian Science Monitor In