Attachment and Detachment

[Julie Smith]

Thanks, Judi, for the conversation and kindnesses.  Your comments helped
me link some things I hadn't put together before.

You said "No attachment to outcome to me is similar to inviting those in
the opening of space to (as Gerard put it) honor the group by getting
out of the way."  This gets at the core of what I've been trying to talk
about.

I'm not convinced it always honors the group to stay out of the way.
I'm willing to take that concept as a worthy and valuable starting
assumption, but I think we also need to be open to the possibility that
sometimes more active involvement is better than staying out of the way.
My recent experience with youth is an example of a time when I didn't
feel comfortable staying completely out of the way.

Part of me wonders whether it is this focus on invisibility, on staying
out of the way, that creates a need for the concept of space invaders.
Maybe we created space invaders to give us a way to understand and cope
with situations that defy our normal expectations about OST.  When
staying out of the way doesn't work, why doesn't it?  Is it because of
what the "space invader" is doing or is it because of what we're not
doing?  Might the space invader be inviting us to engage in a different
way?  Are we choosing to blame the "space invader" for our discomfort
when another alternative might be to expand our view of what is possible
within the OST process?

If we define our role as always staying out of the way, then we have no
way of thinking about what we might do when a person or situation calls
for our engagement. Can we consider the possibility that our best, most
loving response might be a visible, engaged response, even when we're
wearing our OST facilitator hat?  Should we give ourselves permission to
explore what an engaged response might look like from an OST
facilitator?  Are there ways of engaging that honor the spoken and
unspoken principles of OST?  Would we be better off if we could be both
invisible and visible, or are we better off being only invisible?

I've struggled with the two issues of space invaders and invisibility
for a long time, but never saw them as linked before.  Whew.

Judi, you said so many other things, thank you, perhaps we'll have a
chance to return to some of those ideas another time, or perhaps someone
else will pick up one of those threads and weave their understanding
into this tapestry ~

Julie

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