Intentional Society: Costly learning
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Not only was there an experiment in our last community practice session that didn't pan out as hoped, I made some compounding facilitation errors and felt on the verge of a meta-level failure. So hey, here's some costly learning! I don't think the cost was ultimately very high, as I'm thankful that the group awareness/field could and did reorient on both levels towards acceptance and learning. But here's what I think I've learned personally — which may not match what other individuals present took away. These come without all the attached context, but hopefully they can still be helpful to others as well:
#1 avoid chasing the past
We may have felt cut-off at the end of the prior session, but going back to process “what felt alive a week ago” is hard to access and there’s a reason we haven't often tried to do it. Things change, and you can't simply think your body into a particular feeling-state. Would need a practice or something, maybe a guided visualization, something more powerful to guide us into a similar state if we really want to do that.
#2 what level are we on
We were maybe debriefing some breakout room conversations, but I kind-of opened the group up to the "is this working?" tension also — additionally, without switching. Trying to do both object-and-meta levels simultaneously there was a muddling move in retrospect — it would have been cleaner and worked better to do one and then the other. Even if "finishing the lackluster thing" was lackluster, then it would have been over and we'd have been cleanly in meta-learning mode/space.
#3 who holds the outermost layer
(One way to use the label "space holder" is that) The space holder holds the responsibility to either maintain or change the outer structure. That structure can be "structurelessness, no-rules mode" but that's still included in what I mean by "outer structure." There’s always a frame, and knowing what it is lets people stay grounded. I think intentional-with-group-awareness frame shifts work much better than not, and if the role of the space holder is going to shift then that also needs to be acknowledged as part of that scaffolding.
#4 pay attention to signal flares
Pay attention to gut level uncertainty — yes even as, or especially as, a facilitator. Be an example of surfacing “signal flares”/objections and normalize attending to those signals. We can check those internal, embodied signals by cross-referencing them with the group: Do you see similar expressions on anyone else's face? Does this signal seem to be alive for the group? But EVEN IF you think you might be alone in your tension, it can still be worth it (and is explicitly welcomed in IS culture) to surface your reaction to/for/with the group.
So there you go, and there I go, wiser and more integrated with these particular knowings. We have one more week left wrapping up this season of IS (including a mini-reunion this Sunday; holler if that interests you), then Season 10 will start on April 16th.
Cheers,
James