Going deeper, taking deeper

[Michael Herman]

hi doug...

1. whenever depth starts is the right time.

2. the bit you quote is harrison talking about a 2-3 day
process and you've just done two short sessions.

3. the question about how people feel after open space is
most interesting and i'd like to hear from others.
personally, i find that holding space is a loan of my
attention to what is happening in the group, circle,
space.   as i am aware of the 'we' of the group, i give less
awareness to 'me' myself.  when the event ends, awareness
shifts back in the direction of 'me' and sometimes there is
some internal grumbling about 'me' having been ignored.
sometimes there is the sense that my heart has been too
stretched for too long, and it takes time for heart to find
its habitual shape again, sort of like when your hand gets
molded in the shape of the snowshovel.  takes a while to
stretch out or stretch back to normal.

also, as awareness holds the 'we,' it is privvy to
information that 'me' would usually ignore, and sometimes
speaks from that place.  afterward, when awareness shifts
back to more 'me,' i am sometimes surprised that i have said
some things that don't make so much sense to 'me.'  in the
event i did last week, i added some notes about the process
to the proceedings.  in it, i gave some mention to some of
the peace prayers that happened in the morning news.  later
on the evening of the second day, in a moment of bringing
awareness back to 'me,' i had this horrible feeling that i'd
injected some of my own peace-minded content into the
proceedings, by giving this prayer moment too much
prominence in the report.  but when i went back to review
the document they'd produced so far, all the issues they'd
typed, i saw there were many many references to peace.  so
even though my comments seemed not appropriate to 'me' they
fit very well with the 'we' i'd been aware of all day.

there is information available during an event that comes
from 'us' and in that space getting people to do/go
somewhere and taking people somewhere doesn't make any
sense.   only afterward when 'me' wants to know that it has
gotten something in return for lending its awarenesss to the
larger group, do the issues of getting, taking, etc show
up.  over time, i try to make the movements of awareness a
more refined pulse, but not always so easy.  that you have
doubts afterward only tells me that you have returned to
'you' and that you find any discomfort, tells me that you've
given a fair amount of awareness to the 'we' of your group.
the withdrawing that hho talks about is, i think, simply
letting awareness pulse between the 'me' and the 'we' until,
by the end of the event, they are 'we' again and i am 'me'
again.   lot of rambling and none of the actual territory is
ever quite so clear, but i do think that my ups and downs
during and after an ost event is very much related to this
movement of awareness between the ALL of the group and the
ONE of me.

hope this will make some sense, doug. will be interested in
how others find their experiences with opening.

m

--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
300 West North Avenue #1105
Chicago IL 60610 USA
phone: 312-280-7838

http://www.michaelherman.com
http://www.globalchicago.net

...inviting organization into movement

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