healing divides
starts with conversation.
- Living Room Conversations works to heal society by connecting people across divides - politics, age, gender, race, nationality, and more – through guided conversations proven to build understanding and transform communities.
- Living Room Conversations works to heal society by connecting people across divides - politics, age, gender, race, nationality, and more – through guided conversations proven to build understanding and transform communities.
This year, Living Room Conversations’ resolution is to create a focus on belonging. Where and how you feel a sense of belonging has a huge impact on sense of self and well-being. Last year, we saw an increase in the number of people interacting with our Mental Health conversation guide.
We had a father, grandmother, high school teacher, faith leader, college student, and recent high school graduate all share what mental health has looked like in their lives.
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?
Great conversations begin with good questions.
No matter how different our gatherings look, with a little planning and creativity, you can make them memorable and meaningful with our question collections.
We’ve made it easy to sprinkle your favorite Living Room Conversation questions wherever you’re gathered, in the car, at the dinner table, even over Zoom. We’ve combed through our vast library of conversation guides to curate a few different Conversation Question Collection. From conversations about current events, to connecting across generations, Living Room Conversations has a full set of holiday conversation resources to make your gathering rich, meaningful, and even enjoyable.
upcoming events
Every month Living Room Conversations hosts free trainings and events, which are listed below.
How to Organize and Host Living Room Conversations
How to Host a Conversation About Race
Introduction to Living Room Conversations
How to Organize and Host Living Room Conversations
press
This week on Borderless, join Vale Sloane as he sits down with Justine Lee of Living Room Conversations and Make America Dinner Again. Through these organizations, her mission is to bring together Americans of every background and political persuasion in low-stakes environments like a meal or a home. She’s found that face-to-face conversations, in contrast to faceless internet interactions, have the power to build understanding and common ground between Americans, even when points of disagreement remain. By helping “lower the temperature” of the political environment in the U.S., these conversations are laying the foundations for a better country for all Americans.
trending topics
MENTAL HEALTH
Many would agree that we want to reduce the stigma around mental health issues so individuals and families are more inclined to seek help. Many people look to traditional western medicine for the primary answers to mental health problems. There is growing interest in exploring a wider variety of ways to support people facing mental health challenges. The value of meditation, exercise and other practices show great promise as we learn more and more about the plasticity of our brains. What does it mean to ‘get better’ from mental health problems, and is it even possible?
POLITICS AND PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
How can we better maintain and create relationships and work towards healthy communities in spite of political differences? Is this even possible? This conversation allows us to start exploring how we can disagree and still care about each other and how we can work together when we find agreement. Whatever our differences, let’s identify the shared values that we can build on for the good of our country. Generosity. Kindness. Freedom. Respect. Human dignity.
WOMEN, LEADERSHIP, AND POWER
Women are increasingly sought out and encouraged to assume leadership positions in many walks of life, from business to community organizations to politics. While some call for further changes towards greater equality, others raise cautions about erasing any gender distinctions in an attempt to “make everything the same.” Are there ways the further expansion of women’s rights can complement traditional structures in society or are they destined to be at war? This broad topic on women and leadership can lead to many other conversations.
CLIMATE CHANGE
It’s time to change the climate of our climate conversations by not huddling under our umbrellas with only those who think what we believe is true! Let’s be brave enough to listen with curiosity to our fellow citizens’ views about the climate. No matter how firmly you stand in your view of climate change, there is a space for you to individually facilitate a change in the climate of our Climate Conversations.
what people are saying
