Attunement as an apporach to consent

Some Thoughts After the Workshop “Attunement as an Embodied Approach to Consent”

For me, it was a very insightful journey creating a workshop where my wish was to explore the extent to which qualities and principles from the attunement practice can support or inform an encounter that we wish to be consensual.

To understand let’s start by perceiving consent not just as a mutual agreement before the experience, but as an ongoing dialogue and an active collaboration for the benefit, well-being, and pleasure of all involved. Inevitably, there will be a gap between the ideas, thoughts, wishes, and boundaries expressed and agreed upon beforehand and the actual lived experience. The dialogue during the experience is essential to bridge the gab, to check if it is really what I want and to possibly extend or correct the agreement. Especially in settings where the experience is very much in the body, checking in verbally frequently can interrupt the flow. Don’t get me wrong; it is very important and necessary to check in verbally, but non-verbal communication can also inform us, if everything is running smoothly or if something is off. And this is something that we can learn.

This is where the attunement practice can be a great support in informing us and in noticing what is happening. The more we train to read the situation and the smoother the non-verbal communication is, the more trust we can build and the more we can dare to follow our intuition during the experience.

In the workshop, we explored different sources of information and trained in various settings to listen to ourselves and to each other:

What is our baseline? Am I/Are we in a state of collaboration, or are we in a state of conflict? Forcing, withdrawing, or escaping can be indicators that something is off. Through attuned listening, we explore how it feels to have a full "yes" and when I am forcing or withdrawing within myself or with the person I am relating to.

How is my system? Am I/Are we relaxing, expanding, and available, or am I or the other person more in a fight/flight/freezing mode and not really able to relate? Am I reacting to whatever happens, or do I have the ability to respond according to the present situation? Our breath, tensions in our body, and how easy it is to maintain eye contact, … can be indicators of our state. If there is a sudden change and something feels off, it might be a moment to check in verbally.

I find it very precious to train this ability to gather more informations on how we are during an interaction. Especially as well for navigating non-verbal spaces, like a dance-jam. It gives me more space to trust what is happening and daring to follow the flow.  Nevertheless is will be forever a learning space and not a “guarantee of being consensual”.