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Book online for facilitating ourselves 2011
phone: 243997 (Eric Ballard)
write: Norman Spink, CBiB, 39 Garland Close,
Hemel Hempstead, HP2 5HU
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phone: 243997 (Eric Ballard)
write: Norman Spink, CBiB, 39 Garland Close,
Hemel Hempstead, HP2 5HU
e-
facilitating ourselves 2011
23 - 29 July @ Unstone Grange, Derbyshire
to get close to others
without losing myself
See full details
How to book
23 -
to get close to others
without losing myself
See full details
How to book
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Deeply felt community....
Community building is the commitment to not withdraw. To stay in the group, in the circle. There are facilitators in the group, it is their job to hold the group as it struggles to find it’s way to community. The only thing is the job of the facilitators is almost exclusively silence. So, a leaderless group with no clear ideal. Thankfully there are guidelines to help. The group meets in a circle for ninety minutes at a time, twice a day, the instructions are: to speak only when moved to speak; to speak in “I statements” rather than generalizations, for example “I’m annoyed” rather than “you are annoying” and to be specific not general such as “my divorce was awful” rather than “divorce is an awful thing.” Of course with no leaders these guidelines are often broken and it becomes down to the group to address that. I say it’s down to the group, but this brings up an important aspect of community building. When all individuality is fully respected there is no one left to speak for you. No one to represent your interests because only you have your interests. The difficult and painful thing is that you have to do it for yourself. If you don’t like it that those guidelines are broken then there is only you who can say so. So, it is often chaos in the circle, but when the chaos is allowed to run, as it has to be, at least two things happen. The first is that members of the community start to hear each other, start to sense each other as individuals. The second is that eventually everyone fully realizes that they are lost. Lost or stuck. Once that happens something else takes over, Maybe attempts to organise, or rescue each other, but these are doomed and run themselves out. Eventually a stillness settles, and community maybe, just maybe, community starts. It’s difficult to say what that means but you can tell when it happens. Someone speaks into the silence and shares from their heart. There are no attempts to patch it up, make it better or change it all. Life, after all, is seldom so simple as to be fixed by sage advice from someone across the room from you. Rather the space opens to that person who spoke and reaches up to greet them. All attention is with them, all hearts are present. You can simply feel it in the room. Someone will speak after them, and in some magical way, what they say is a response to the gift that has just been given and the whole group grows. When it works, community heals like a group waiting at the bedside of a Victorian fever patient. Waiting and hoping and willing towards health in a shared vigil that is both helpless and powerful beyond measure. Am I being clear? Can you imagine that? Eighteen unique individuals, all of whom you know and love for the pain that they have shared, waiting at the bedside of your darkest fear and longing? It is quite a remarkable thing to be part of.
