Intentional Society: Support Zone tour
Click here to register for our next orientation video call on Friday, November 4th at 1:00-1:55pm Pacific Time (4pm Eastern, 8pm UTC). And if you're new to this newsletter, the last half-dozen issues in the archive might be helpful
The IS Community Sessions are taking on (at least in my mind) a container nature now: they hold a space for things to go in, things which can vary. Practices will continue to be central for the majority of slots, but right now we're taking a a "tour" through the zones of our expansion, making contact with the nature of each experientially for direct and meta value.
Our last session focused on the Support Zone, using our Mini-Cases practice. Case work is a core practice of ours that we haven't done much of lately, deriving from Case Clinic if you haven't heard of it. Having done a case, we took interest for Support Pods to form.
What is a Support Pod? I later wrote,
The kind of Support Pod I'm thinking of focuses on giving time to being in service of each member in turn, with that person choosing what activity would best serve them on that call.
Case practice can be a great default, as insight sparked from others' perceptions and reflections can be helpful in such a wide variety of situations. (I can supply our best 25m, 45m, and 70m versions.) But sometimes, maybe you just want to be heard and understood. Or maybe you want sense-making analysis or actual problem-solving suggestions. Or you want to work a growth edge by being challenged (role play, hot seat, judgement) in a safe environment. It's up to you, because it is for you, in support of your thriving.
A round of cases can also be a good way to build trust for future rounds of more varied activity. It can be done one-call-per-person in 60-to-90 minutes, or two 45-minute turns inside a 100-minute call. The number of people is flexible: "number of turns" trades off with "diversity of perspective." Pairs of two can serve as accountabili-buddies if progress and consistency is more important than insight. Pods of four or five provide better collective-intelligence, and allow quorum with one person missing.
There are many ways to support, and this one is ours to grow and tend. I have high hopes for this format as carrying a lot of our learning about what's effective for developmental perspective-shifting and what makes for a joyful win-win experience of service and benefit. I'm excited to be putting this to the test, continuing to learn, and for the flourishing we'll unlock!
We also held short interest groups for the Connection and Impact zones, which will be next up on our tour. Our next Community Session will be all about social connection, with activities self-organized by that group of members.
(Impact Zone is also taking shape, and the Core Project has been outlined! Future newsletters...)
Cheers,
James