Learning is messy.
Especially for groups. Especially when each of the members has truly big ideas that include sometimes divergent visions for a community that may soon have the power to transform an entire region.
Last Saturday, I was priveleged to facilitate a group of visionaries in both refining and expanding a vision for “The Circus.” As a Slow Learner, playing the role of meeting facilitator truly challenged me. I hate conflict. I avoid it, whatever the cost. So when I stepped up to help this wildly energetic and diverse group to converge on some first steps toward decision-making, I did so with much fear and self-doubt. It wasn’t as if the group was hostile, but my imagined fears included shouting matches and challenges to my fitness for the role of meeting facilitator. None of these self-centered fears came to be realized, of course. I’m learning that when we place our own attachment to outcomes aside, when we work toward a greater good, when we trust people, that good things happen. I know all this sounds a bit corny, but it’s taken me more than a few years to learn this.
