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Excerpts from Coming Back to Life, Chapter 5
Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown, Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World. (Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 1988).
Guiding Group Work ~ The Role of the Guide PART I - The Guide's Tasks
Our responsibilities include: - creating a safe setting in which people can come to trust themselves and each other;
- presenting the goals of the workshop and eliciting agreement on them;
- helping the group stay focused on the work at hand;
- offering exercises and explaining them clearly;
- working within time constraints, in a manner that does not rush or drag things out;
- helping the group enjoy itself.
Co-facilitating with one or more other guides
Two or more guides working together provide support for one another, and training as well, if one is less experienced... Co-facilitation requires a carefully designed plan... and ongoing communication among the guides, including check-ins during breaks and "debriefings" at the end...
Working with Strong Emotions
...Here are some pointers:
- Respect people's emotions.
Remember that anger, sorrow, fear, and guilt are natural responses to the suffering of other beings and the deterioration of our world. Do not rush in to comfort when these responses well up. Your very presence, acceptance, and matter-of-fact bearing are reassurance enough. Keep in mind the distinction between our pain for the world and its emotional discharge. Tears indicate release of tension; they are healing.
- Respect people's defenses and resistance.
Let no one in the workshop feel pressure to display emotion. Catharsis is healthy, but the outward expression of emotion is no measure of its inner intensity, or of a person's capacity to care...
In each of us, alongside whatever else we feel, are desires to shut out and shut down.
It is not up to you as guide to resolve the emotions of the workshop participants, or to rescue them by convincing them that "there is hope" or "life is worth living." If you fully realize that pain for our world is proof-of our interconnectedness - that it can open us to the knowledge of the web of life - then you will be able to stay grounded in the midst of emotional turbulence.
- Trust the compassion and community arising in the group.
Personal Despair and Social Despair
...Most people come to workshops with a good measure of personal as well as social causes for despair. They wonder about the relationship between the two and sometimes feel they cannot credit or validate their pain for the world unless this relationship is clarified. In responding, the following points are helpful:
- It is neither possible nor necessary to draw crystal-clear distinctions between the personal and social roots of our pain for the world. Because we are all interconnected, suffering in our personal lives always has roots in our collective lives, and the suffering of each of us compounds in turn our collective pain.
- Our experience of personal suffering can serve to sensitize us to the sufferings of our world...
- Therefore, by virtue of our very infirmities, we can serve our world. Mahatma Gandhi himself was assailed by many inner, psychological contradictions, but he did not devote his life to their resolution on a personal level...
- If persons in the workshop need counseling or therapy in dealing with personal distress, encourage them to obtain it. Meanwhile the workshop's focus on the pain of our world may help them momentarily release their private preoccupations into the larger arena of concern that they share with others.
Stresses in Guiding Group Work
To guide a workshop can be profoundly rewarding. Such a privilege is not without its pressures, and it is well to recognize them.
...When we embark on the work as a guide, we find our own strengths. Here are some pointers to help us find them:
- Stay clear and grounded in your true intention. Remember why you are doing this work.
- Remember that what people say and do in a workshop is not a measure of its long-term effect on their lives.
- Be patient with yourself and stay centered. Keep breathing...
PART II - The Workshop Setting
...You will want a space that can be closed to outside disturbance, and spacious enough to permit people to move around easily... Remember that the real context or setting of the work is the threatened planet, our larger body and home.
Access to nature, for some of the exercises and for breaks, helps participants reconnect with the more-than-human world.
...Some guides like to create an "altar" in the room, inviting people to bring special objects and photos for it. Distracting posters and signs may be covered or removed. If possible, chairs and floor cushions are set up in a circle, or concentric arcs for larger groups.
Helping people speak and listen
A good workshop is a highly participative venture; therein lies its power to connect, inform, invigorate. The greatest gift that a guide can offer to participants is the opportunity to listen to themselves and each other. And when they really do that, so much caring and wisdom emerge that the participants become each other's teachers.
In the whole group
In a typical conversation, some individuals tend to dominate and some stay quiet, while others wait impatiently to get a word in edgewise. This pattern does not encourage full participation and attention. A "talking object," passed around the circle or taken from the center by the person who wishes to speak, helps people take turns and slows the pace for better listening. You can use a stone, a plain or decorated stick, a feather, a conch shell, or a ritual object that has special meaning for you. A meditation bell can be passed around the circle, each person sounding it once after speaking, allowing the tone to carry the group into silence for a moment before the next speaker begins.
Encourage spontaneity. Rehearsing what one is going to say interferes with listening to others. If you ask people to respond to a specific question, give them a few minutes at the outset to think about what they want to say, so they will be able to listen better to the others. Then as each person speaks, his or her words are received in attentive silence, without verbal response.
Anyone who has facilitated a group of ten or more people knows the quandary of time. We want to respect each speaker, but all too often as we go around the circle, each statement grows a little longer, and the time for other activities slips away. To counteract this tendency, ask for brevity clearly at the outset, reminding people that brief expressions are often the most evocative….
Another time-minding method utilizes a watch which is silently passed to the one who is speaking when his time is up - one minute, say, or two. He finishes his sentence and then holds it while the next person speaks, passing it to her after the allotted time, and she in turn does the same for the following speaker. This quiet and easy method shares the responsibility with everyone in the group.
In small groups and pairs
People can speak more fully, of course, when you divide them into small groups or pairs. Encourage groups to share the time and listen respectfully. Sometimes free conversation with lots of give and take is appropriate, but it can go off on tangents and deprive people of equal time. Taking turns lets people speak without interruption, have time to think or even go into silence. This approach fosters better listening, too. If you choose that mode, say how much time is available (e.g. five minutes per person) and signal when each interval has elapsed. You can always allow a few minutes at the end for general conversation if time permits. Groups can also keep their own time, passing a watch as in the large group.
In dyads and small groups when people are given an allotted time to express themselves, encourage them to use it for silence as well. In stillness, they can listen to their body, or what is underneath the words they spoke, or what is still out of reach, awaiting articulation. Many times in these structured listening situations, people hear themselves saying something for the first time. They need time to hear it and absorb it, before anything else happens. To jump in with words right after people have shared their deepest feelings can trivialize or dissipate the intensity of the moment. Sheer presence - steady, alert, and caring - is the most appropriate response.
Teaching how to listen
Many people have never really learned to listen, especially in a group setting. …
Sometimes it is appropriate at the outset to give guidelines for listening.
Here are some examples:
- In the large group, respect the person talking by giving your full attention, without interruption or side conversations.
- In pairs, sit facing each other, looking into the other person's eyes as much as you can, with your arms relaxed.
- In pairs, give your partner your full attention and remember you don't have to solve the problem or give advice.
- Listen to yourself when you are speaking.
- Let silence happen.
Sustaining Group Energy and Participation
Go outside for contact with the wider world.
Take the pulse
As guide, you want to know what is happening with the people in your workshop - are they feeling restless, anxious, isolated? If it's not clear to you, find out by asking. Invite participants to "check in” with a phrase, sentence, sound, or gesture expressing what they are feeling at that moment, either randomly or by going around the circle. Remember you cannot meet everyone's needs at the same time and no one really expects you to, but the very act of checking in helps people feel more engaged and responsible.
Closing the Workshop
A focused completion process respects the depth of experience and communication that has occurred. People have taken risks and trusted each other with disclosures they may never have shared before. They need a transition back to the tenor of ordinary life; they need to say good-bye to the community they have created and enjoyed.
Take care to end on time so that people with engagements do not leave before the others are finished; make it a part of your commitment to the group. If people still want to talk, go through the formal ending on time and invite them to finish up on their own afterwards.
Closing Circle
Coming together in a full circle at the end of the workshop honors the mutuality the participants have experienced. Speeches are unnecessary: simple words of acknowledgment suffice...
Follow-up
People will want to be able to maintain contact with each other after the close of the workshop. Such contact honors the sense of community they built together and provides support for the visions and plans they hatched. You can encourage this in a number of ways: - List of participants - Have people sign in (with addresses, phone numbers, fax, and/or e-mail) when they arrive. Make photocopies to be given out at the end of the workshop, or sent soon after by mail/email.
- Information on local resources and actions - The end of a workshop is a good time to share information about organizations and projects in which people can become involved. Participants want and need this, the wider the variety the better. So, collect and provide materials but don't recruit. Put up some sheets of newsprint where participants can write up further resources and actions; this is preferable to a lot of announcements.
- Intentions and plans - Many... exercises... help people to realize what they have to offer and to make concrete plans for action. To let these plans be briefly shared with the whole group enhances commitment and allows other participants to offer suggestions and support... People can also write brief descriptions of their projects, to be copied and distributed by mail...
Evaluation
...It is good to let people give feedback on the experience. This should occur prior to the closing circle.
Evaluation offers participants an immediate opportunity to contribute to the work, building a sense of mutual respect, belonging and responsibility.
Evaluation can be done in either individual written form or as a group activity. If it is to be written, give the participants open-ended questions (orally, posted on newsprint, or on a prepared form) such as "What did you find most useful? Least useful?" Handing out evaluation forms to be mailed later provides more time for reflection, but brings a smaller return.
Evaluations done collectively and orally are quicker (ten minutes can be sufficient). As enjoyable, high-energy brainstorms, they generate more items of response. An effective form is three wide columns on newsprint or blackboard, the first headed by a plus sign (for what the participants liked), the second by a minus sign (for what they liked less, or what didn't work for them), and the third by an arrow (for suggestions for improvement). In true brainstorm fashion, these are not to be argued, discussed, or defended - just noted - and thus a rich blend of contrasting reactions often appears. The same activity might appear in both the plus and minus column, according to different people's evaluations. In this approach, participants can note the variety of responses and are less likely to generalize from their individual experience...
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