SV: confessions of a space invader

Eva P Svensson eva at epshumaninvest.se
Thu Nov 28 00:13:07 PST 2002


Julie,
Thanks for sharing, I can both see and feel the unconfortable feeling in the
room, and for me it's like you said - it is about trying. As long as the
intentions are good and made out of respect of one an other it can hardly go
totally wrong.
And I really like your three breaths! That's the part of OST that I for
myself have felt a little difficult towards. Now you made it perfectly
clear!
Lots of thank's from
Eva


Bästa hälsningar


Eva P Svensson

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eva at epshumaninvest.se

-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]För Julie Smith
Skickat: den 27 november 2002 18:03
Till: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Ämne: confessions of a space invader

Greetings on this Thanksgiving Eve ~

I have a story to share.

Last week I was invited to facilitate an open space event for 30 middle
school girls who were routinely engaging in verbal conflict.  The time
constraints were extremely limited: the sponsor (my friend and fellow
OSLISTer Dave Frey) had been able to eke an hour and 15 minutes from the
school day.  The time period spanned the students' lunch time, so we
also had to squeeze in time for pizza.  We both thought the time
constraints were formidable, especially for a relatively high-conflict
situation.  After talking about the reasons to do it and the reasons not
to, Dave and I decided to give it a go.  We figured we probably wouldn't
do any harm, there was a good chance the process would prove helpful in
some way, and we might learn something that would help us expand our
tools for helping students and using OST in school settings.  A few
weeks ago we opened space for a very successful OST in 2 hours, so we
felt like we were in somewhat familiar territory.  The theme the
students chose for this OST was "Unleashing the Drama."

I woke up early the day of the event and spent some time thinking about
what I wanted to say in the opening.  In recent OST openings, I've
enjoyed inviting participants to take three breaths together.  With the
first breath I invite them to acknowledge and then let go of whatever
they brought into the room with them: their worries, obligations,
thoughts about past and future events, anything not in the here and now.
With the second breath I ask them to increase their awareness of
themselves, how they're feeling, what they hope for during the time we
spend together.  With the third breath I ask them to think about and
become aware of others in the room.  I invite them to look around the
room and notice who is there, and to recognize the wisdom and goodness
of the people gathered there.  And then we're off, and I begin
explaining the OST process.  This has gone off quite amazingly well
several times with both youth and adults.  I've observed people visibly
relax during this very brief opening, and then easily enter into the OST
process.  Tried and true.  Or so I thought.

On the morning of the day I was destined to become a space invader, I
pondered the opening for a good long while.  One part of me told me to
go fast: I didn't want to use any more of their precious time than was
necessary to explain how the process works.  Another part of me told me
to go slow: to help create a sense of ease and calm, to give people a
chance to get a sense of the vibe of the room before asking them to
reveal themselves by posting topics.  And I felt I needed to acknowledge
the conflict that was in the room, to name it and invite discussion
about it.  And then I started thinking about what I had learned about
conflict in the many thousands of hours I've spent with people
struggling their way through life-altering conflict, and I identified
three things I saw in almost all those conflicts:  people made
assumptions about what another person had done and/or their intentions
behind what they had done, those assumptions led to misunderstandings
that multiplied and gave birth to additional misunderstandings, and
those misunderstandings led to people choosing to be unkind to each
other.  Assumptions, misunderstanding, unkindness.  I decided to adapt
my three breaths idea to invite consideration of these three aspects of
conflict in my opening.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  (If
there's an understanding out there about the kinds of things to say or
not say in the opening, now would be a really good time to let me in on
it.)

Maybe it could have been a good idea.  There's really no way to know
based on how very flat my opening felt because there was another problem
I didn't know about until the whole thing was over.  Unlike any other
opening I've done, almost no one made eye contact with me.  The few who
did were staring daggers at me.  A few girls whispered and glared at me.
I wasn't sure what to make of things, so I bumbled along as best I
could, hurried to the part where I explained how the process works, and
let them have at it.  Topics were posted.  Pizza was devoured.
Discussions were engaged in.  Quality of discussion was mixed.  Time was
very short, issues were intensely personal, and eating was a significant
distraction.  Still, the effort was made.  Not everything was said, but
it was a start.  Closing circle was chillier than usual.  Connections
hadn't really been made.

And then, the debrief.  That's when I learned I had invaded their space.
In addition to all the other limitations we were operating with, there
was a misunderstanding about process.  In the planning session (which I
didn't attend), the students understood they would be in charge of what
happened.  I'm not sure how they expected things to unfold, but whatever
that was, they thought, would come from THEM.  So when I was invited
into their circle to facilitate the process, their interpretation was
that I was invading their space.  They were surprised.  And angry.  At
ME!  (All of which is a good example of why I don't like the term space
invaders.  I think space invaders exist only in the eye of the beholder.
Now that I've been beheld as one, I'm even more convinced this is true.)


Come to think of it, we should have done a better job preparing
participating adults beforehand.  I was surprised by the prolonged
advice giving of some of the adults who attended.  Oh dear... is there a
contest for how many mistakes it's possible to make in a single OST?

I feel like a mad scientist with way too many changing variables:
dramatically shortened time frame exacerbated by food as a significant
distraction, new opening, unintentional space invading, inadequate
preparation of adult participants in an event intended for youth...

And still... I'm glad we did it.  It was a new and interesting
experience for all of us.  The problem was named.  The intentions were
good.  People talked.  We all did the best we could with what we knew at
the time.  Thinking back on it, it feels good to me.   I like the energy
of movement and engagement, even when it feels more like stumbling than
gliding.   I just like the fact that we were all in the room together,
trying.

Julie

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