Learning Curve

This is the space where I will dialogue and muse about what I am learning that is most relevant and challenging to me: where my mind might be currently numb, tickled or simply experiencing a new ‘Ah ha!’

Monday 6/2
What am I learning today?
1) Trust.
It has been a process to learn to trust in flow and that the universe can figure out my challenging situations and desires better than I can by ‘trying.’ I had placed out into the world that I wanted to connect with likeminded people, especially those of the same age. Well, I couldn’t have created a better start to this if I had tried and tried and tried. The details of the series of events don’t really matter, but the point is that I was introduced yesterday to a girl (Andrea, 23) and her family. She’s super awesome, her dad is really into the kind of work that I am drawn to (pattern recognition, lateral thinking, creativity, solving ‘intractable problems’…), and her sister used to be a raw food vegan, is studying botany and applied to attend Naropa in the recent past! (For those of you who don’t know me, that would one way to make an accurate description of me. [except of the ‘used to be’ part ] Thank you world. Now, I need to keep open and trust that the universe is also working out the best ever housing situation for me too….

2) In the perpetual thinking about ‘what do I want to do with myself???,’ numerous times I have come up with the answer ‘Earth Doctor.’ This combines my love of nature and wanting to revivify the plant with my drive toward health and healing (which is generally expressed in human health and human healing.) I have realized more and more over the years that ALL of the work that I am drawn to, in some capacity or another, could be called ‘healing’ – to make better or whole again (I really wish the verb was ‘wholeing’!). So, thinking along these lines today and that this social innovation / whole systems change work that I am learning about now is also ‘healing’ work, I was letting my brain play with what title would be appropriate. (Because ‘doctor’ isn’t right.)
Here’s the general flow of the though…. ‘Hmm, ‘doctor’ …working with emergence and evolution. Hmm, ‘evo-lution’….’evo-cator.’ Evocator!
It’s kind of like evoker (one who evokes…awakens, calls forth, summons, arouses…), which I like enough on it’s own, but it also has a healing twist to it.
Evocator – One who awakens and ‘wholes.’

3) I learned about Edward DeBono (spelling??). He sounds fabulous – the father of ‘lateral thinking’ and the concept of wearing different ‘hats’ (pure information, ‘what’s right here?,’ ‘what’s wrong here?,’ supporter…) It sounds like he has a lot of good ideas and tools/processes/procedures for working with groups to enable them to think differently. Just what I am looking for right now!


Friday 5/30
1) A place for me?
I saw myself tons in Vanessa today. The set of skills and abilities she exhibited today (the ability to see the whole picture of what was being discussed, to remember all the different threads, to hear larger underlying themes and what people ‘were really saying’…) I have seen these traits in myself for a long time, but hadn’t ever really found a ‘use for them.’ They had always seemed useful, but where they would be highly and directly applicable in a work situation hadn’t been seen yet.

Do I really want to ‘just facilitate’ as a career? Well, I never want to do anything that I put the word ‘just’ in front of  I’ve already said that I am really drawn to this type of work – it’s why I’m in South Africa right now! I know that I am also drawn to content work: sustainability, restoration, success and leadership coaching, sustainable ag, changing mindsets…. These skills will obviously be valuable no matter where I go or what I end up doing, but one of the riddles right now is how much will it be a skill set utilized, versus the primary focus of my work.

2) How engaged is the facilitator?
How do you really empower people and enable them to speak? (For the background read the ‘storyline’ post for today.) REOS has done tons of preliminary work to help make it possible for some of the visionary and hopeful of the disadvantaged community to really be a part of this project by starting to giving them the tools for vocalization and visualization. I had thought about it before, but never really deeply: Did some people not learn (or have they unlearned) how to dream? Is it that some of these people really cannot envision better possibilities? Or, do they not know how/do not feel they can speak about it?

I just saw today that I have always implicitly imagined in my visions of what is possible with working with disadvantaged groups that they would have desires and ideas about what to do and what is possible. Is this ability to proactively vision really more of a skill that I [and many] have developed that is not innate? Or, is it innate and just knocked out of many people from destitute situations?
[Related to: “Self-reflection does not happen automatically. Do not expect people to become self-reflexive ‘all of the sudden.’ It needs to be learned and practiced” (McNiff p.18).]

What is the role of a facilitator in these situations? In order to help creative positive, generative dialogue, do they also have to bring their tools of innovative visioning before a group really gets the hang of it and can own the process? Should facilitators really spend a lot of time on developing skills such as appreciative inquiry (“Hey, what is really possible here? What could we create if there were no barriers?”) so groups could do this work on their own without needing seed thoughts? Or, are seed thoughts fine? I know I have been to over 20 indigenous, disadvantaged, and/or alternative communities across six countries in six continents. I have see more varied attempts at community self-sufficiency (or at least self-get-to-the-bare-minimum) than most people ever will, and I have good ideas. Is it a crime not to share them?
[Compared to: “When we know or think we know, it is harder to listen without rushing to judgment and jumping to conclusions. Being an expert is a sever impediment to listening and learning (Kahane p53).]