Authenticity and self-discovery in Open Space

Harrison Owen hhowen at verizon.net
Fri May 26 09:13:44 PDT 2006


Thinking about the manifestation of masculine and feminine in each one of us
took me to another place, and I suppose it is all related. But I may have to
go several times around the barn in order to find the door!?? In other
words, I will probably wander a bit, but I think there is a point.  It is
all about authenticity and self-discovery.

>From the very beginning of this Open Space adventure it has been very clear
to me that anybody with a good head and a good heart can "do it." It is not
that training and experience count for nothing, but they are clearly not
prerequisite for doing an Open Space. If you can sit in a circle, create a
bulletin board, open a market place, you will get on with the business. At
some significant level, the capacity to open space doesn't have a thing to
do with training and experience; it seems almost like a natural act. This
was certainly true with my first Open Space. It seems like a long time ago
(21 years), and at the same time it is only yesterday. But long or short, it
is very clear to me that I didn't have a clue what I was doing. No theory,
no training, no nothing - but it surely felt good.

And as things went along, I watched other people having the same experience.
Without a book to read, training program to participate in, or colleagues
for support - they just jumped in. And everything just worked out perfect.
Of course, once you have done something and it seems to work, there is a
natural tendency to attempt some improvements. And so some of my friends
began to think of other things they could do, ways of integrating
(combining) Open Space with whatever sorts of approaches they had been
using, or had recently learned about. Interestingly enough, as I watched
their efforts, it seemed to me that they more they fiddled (added, changed,
sequenced etc) the more cumbersome and less functional the experience in
Open Space became. My personal approach went just the other direction, and I
found myself thinking about one more thing to leave out - not do!

It was not unlike peeling an onion. Layer after layer disappeared, and of
course, if you keep on going eventually you get to a point where there is
nothing there! I pretty much reached that point and simultaneously found
myself with a marvelous conundrum - the less I did, the better things got,
and if I ever were to reach a point where I did nothing at all, that should
be the best of all! Fair enough - but then what did I bring to the party?
What was it about me that was significant? 

I suppose this could sound like longing to be loved (Somebody, please NEEEED
ME!). Guilty as charged, I am sure.  And I think the question is a real one.
Who am I and what difference does that make?  I guess the simple answer is:
I am me, complicated by the fact that "me" changes over time. The only
"thing" I will ever bring to the party is me, nothing more, nothing less -
just me.  And the only thing that seems to matter much is that the "me" that
shows up is really me. Not some abstract me. Not some new and improved me.
Not somebody else's version of me. Just me. Just the way I am. I think that
is called "authenticity." 

At this point the waters get a little muddy, if only because the "me" I am
changes day to day. Or what may be the same thing; my awareness of this
little old me changes. So just who is this "me" that shows up? The
traditional approach to such an interesting question would be to engage in
some form of self-analysis prior to showing up. But that never worked for
me. The harder I tried to figure out who I was, the more confused I became -
and I suspect that confusion was also draped in a mantel of inauthenticity.
More often than not, I came out looking like something I thought I should
be, or that somebody else wanted me to be - all under the heading of
self-improvement.

So I just showed up, any way I could, and did what I was able to do. No
apologies. Sounds kind of in-your-face, but it definitely worked in a most
unexpected fashion. Somehow or another, the Open Space environment (whether
I was the facilitator or participant) striped away all of the
should-have-beens, might-have-beens, could-have-beens.  And in retrospect I
discovered elements of me I never expected.

So where does this tour around the barn leave us? Speaking personally, I
have found that the experience in Open Space to be an incredible dialogue
between the me that showed up authentically and the emergent self that that
greeted me at the end of the day. If nothing else it sure beats
psychoanalysis and is a lot cheaper.

And for whatever it is worth, one of the things I discovered about me is
that I am bi-polar for sure - Masculine and Feminine.

Harrison





Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20854
Phone 301-365-2093
Skype hhowen
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.ho-image.com 
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