There is a great flowering of dialogic facilitation training this month around these parts in southern British Columbia and northern Washington State. First Peggy Holman and Tom Cato are offering an Appreciative Inquiry training in Seattle from October 18-21.
Following that, Toke Paludan Moeller and friends will be right here on Bowen Island offering the excellent Art of Hosting gathering which I can highly recommend. That workshop will run October 30 to November 3 which is a great time to be here on our island, as we celebrate Hallowe’en as a quasi-national holiday. That workshop will also feature an alumni gathering that I’ll be at on November 2 and 3.
Finally, you can top off your learning month with an Open Space practice workshop offered by myself and Wendy Farmer-O’Neil in Nanaimo from November 15-17.
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It has occurred to me that the act of driving can be both the greatest source of stress in my life, or one of the best opportunities to develop a practice of compassion, relaxation and offering. Being the kind of guy that prefers the latter to the former, I have developed a driving practice to enhance those qualities.
The basic theory is this: when you are on the road, driving in traffic you have unlimited space to give others. Ironically, there is only very limited space to TAKE, because taking space usually means speeding up, driving dangerously and aggressively. Giving space however is simple. It means slowing down. Doing that creates as much space as you need to then give away to someone else. It’s almost magic.
Every time you are driving, you can open space and give it to others almost constantly. If someone wants in, let them in. If someone is waiting to cross the road, stop and let them cross. If someone is tailgating you, slow down so that they can pass. Let people have the speed they want to have.
Start doing this and you realize that it is only a small step to actually inviting people to occupy the space you open for them. Once people realize that you are actually offering them the chance to go ahead, they will gladly wave at you, flash their lights in appreciation or nod and smile. That feeds you soul. You can drive all day in traffic and arrive where you are going refreshed because you have been doing nothing but giving all day long.
This sets up a nice positive feedback loop. The guy that cuts you off and speeds ahead of you is actually receiving the gift you are creating for him. Slow down, back off and you will become more relaxed and he won’t be so uptight. There is no race for him to win, and so the competition evaporates.
The woman on her cell phone weaving in and out of traffic needs space because her attention is divided. Giving her all kinds of space is a gift and keeps you safe too. She stops weaving because things are not so tight around her.
It sounds bizarre, but now, on the rare occasions when I actually have to drive in heavy traffic I look forward to it, and to the results of giving unconditionally to those who need more of what I have to offer.
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On the weekend I was happy to be running an Open Space event for 125 people who live across British Columbia’s Gulf Islands. We had a ball, and I’ll write more shortly.
One of the great things that happened there was that four amazing people joined me in holding space: Wendy Farmer-O’Neil, Valerie Embry, Nancy McPhee and Beverley Neff.
A million small and interesting conversations happened between us during the event, a great side effect of working with a team. One of them was about the vagaries of praise and blame, and especially how important it is to be stable as a facilitator.
Ever the trickster, Wendy illuminated the topic with this parable:
There was once a zen monk whose master instructed him to go out into the world with nothing but his robe and begging bowl until he had dissolved his ego to the point where he was no longer blown and buffeted by the winds of praise and blame. The student set out in earnest, walking on foot, begging for his meals and lodgings. He wandered for 300 miles and eventually came to rest in a small village where they had no monk or temple. He built himself a small hut where he meditated and ministered to the villagers for 10 years. After ten years, he finally felt he had dissolved his ego completely and was free from being blown and buffeted by the winds of praise and blame. He wrote a poem about it and sent it to his master to celebrate his success.
Upon receiving the note, the master smiled and wrote “fart fart” on the bottom, gave it back to the village messenger to be returned.
When the monk received the note he was furious. How could his master so belittle the accomplishments of the past ten years. He set out on foot and travelled to see his old master himself. When he arrived and was granted audience, he demanded to know what his master had meant. His master replied, “In your poem, you tell me that you are free from being blown and buffeted by the winds of praise and blame, but two little farts blew you 300 miles.”
Want more wisdom like this? Come to our training in November!
🙂
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“My college buddy Al was telling the story last night of a community meeting he had in one of his development district neighborhoods. They were presenting a whole project of new middle and upper income housing right in a neighborhood of poverty and low income folks that would significantly increase the neighborhood’s density and population.
The presentation complete, Q&A opened with total silence, until someone from the back raised their hand and tendered a question: What will they think of us?”
Share:
“My college buddy Al was telling the story last night of a community meeting he had in one of his development district neighborhoods. They were presenting a whole project of new middle and upper income housing right in a neighborhood of poverty and low income folks that would significantly increase the neighborhood’s density and population.
The presentation complete, Q&A opened with total silence, until someone from the back raised their hand and tendered a question: What will they think of us?”