Intentional Society: Facilitating an Exploring
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Last Sunday we finished holding a task/process as a practice and consented to a set of facilitation proposals. It felt good to declare completion and celebrate the making of some decisions, and just as strongly if felt good to have slowed down to make compassionate space for relating with our own reactions.
Most proposals were aimed at the 26th (a day run fully without me), but we're getting started this week. Working in public, I figure I'll try to generate and lay out here my current working guidance for facilitating an "exploring" segment of an Intentional Society general session.
- Exploring (as an IS session activity) is the breadth pole, complementing the depth pole of relating. The extension, fueling the integration.
- Exploring points to learning, extending, stretching, adventuring, perspective
- The facilitator is a leader, the lead explorer, setting the direction of the expedition
- The ideal leader stance combines both experience\expertise and invitation\questioning
- Storytelling from their unique experience brings understanding, connection, empathy
- Sourcing an invitation brings out the wisdom across the group and focuses it
- Meaning, discovery, transformation — those can't be forced or given by a facilitator. Relational\emotional resonance is what bridges the gap of transmission, sparking similar perspective across differences. (Net: just be yourself, be real, and let your passion flow through.)
- Exploration can be play, and people are game. Exploring can be combined or coupled with relating.
- Yes, you can pick any kind of structure — and yes, "share for 10 minutes, small groups for 20" is a simple\safe\sane default starting point
- Worries about the impact of an invitation can be brought with and held as a part of the invitation. An invitation shan't force vulnerability, but shall frame up space to allow it.
Kudos to Ben for drawing out much of this (and listening to less-well-formed descriptive attempts) as we prepped this week. I look forward to facilitating a relating segment as a partner this Sunday to his exploring segment, potentially finding some jazz musicality in the related notes connecting across them.
Cheers,
James