The presidential election is finally over, and about 71 million Americans are jubilant, while the other 66 million who voted are in deep shock and despondent mourning. Much of Europe and the UK looks on in disbelief.

But after all the hatred and name calling and accusations die away, the greatest problem we face is simply this:  how do we glue the country back together again?  How do we get over the shaming and ostracizing of people that occurred simply because they had a different political choice?  And in this kind of febrile atmosphere, how do we even talk to each other, much less move forward?

As I’ve written about before in my book The Bond, we can take many cues from the work of Orland Bishop, founder of the Shade Tree Multicultural Foundation, who has managed to get young black rival gang members in Watts, one of the most violent places in America, to get along.

Orland Bishop defines his work as ‘social healing,’ teaching these rival black gang members new ways to relate to one another.

After traveling through western and southern Africa, studying with Zulu tribal elders, Bishop brought back with him a means of relating embodied in the Zulu greeting Sawubona. Although usually translated as “I see you” (and made famous by the N’avi in the film Avatar), Sawubona literally means “we see you,” and the correct response is Yabo sawubona, “Yes, we see you, too.”

“It’s not a single ‘I’ person,” says Bishop. In African culture a person is thought to be connected to all living things and the whole of consciousness, past and present, and so relating is never thought to be a solitary act.

“It’s an invitation for us to participate in each other’s life,” says Bishop, “Through Sawubona we are capable of experiencing the quality of another without judgement or prejudice shaped by our thoughts. Sawubona is an openness to the highest good in a person.”

Bishop coaches the young men in the art of speaking and listening deeply and from the heart without being critical or judgmental.

In this he uses the art of dialogue, first proposed by David Bohm, a communication skill in which a group explores feelings and ideas in an unstructured way to create greater understanding, deeper connection and a new synergy of ideas. Bohm, a British physicist, believed in the unseen unity of all matter, the ‘implicate order,’ an idea akin to The Field.

Each of us, wrote Bohm, believes that the way we interpret the world is “the only sensible way in which it can be interpreted.” Consequently when attempting to talk about subjects that matter most to us, we speak from our own version of the truth and invariably end up disagreeing with anyone whose version slightly differs from ours.

Bohm proposed a method of discourse that would eliminate individual and collective presuppositions, help individuals to understand the processes that interfere with real communication, and establish a common version of reality.

The rules of Bohmian dialogue are simple. The parties involved agree that the purpose of the conversation is not to reach a decision or to have a debate. All agree to take turns speaking and not to monopolize the conversation. The participants also agree to be alert to their own reactions as they are taking place.

Dialogue makes use of the power of deep truth-telling; individuals agree to be honest and transparent about the areas of greatest importance to themselves, no matter how controversial or contentious their position, and never to use their views to make another person wrong.

All agree to be fully present and listen respectfully with both heart and mind, without judging one another. Each member tries to build on the ideas of others in the conversation and engage differences in creative ways in order to produce greater shared understanding, connection, and possibility. In the free-flowing interplay of ideas, “a new kind of mind,” Bohm noted, “comes into being.”

Within its large network ShadeTree included a number of young men who were in rival gangs, including the notorious Crips and Bloods, who were able to work together to craft a peaceful future they can both share.

Similarly, in Guayaguil, the peace worker Nelsa Cora taught young people in street gangs to transform their need for belonging and gang membership into “the power of service, life, and love” for a struggling community,  away from violence and into small businesses: printing businesses, music studios, pizzerias. The barrio is now known as Barrio de Paz, Peace Town.

If rival gang members can achieve this, so can we. Give it a try. Find a way to organize meetings with ‘the other,’ explain the rules of dialogue, and see if it kickstarts the healing process.