How ‘Guest House Facilitation’ Affects Your Organization
Our organizations are living systems composed and affected by each member. This ‘group being’ encompasses the magic of a future that wants to emerge.
How does it feel to consider the possibility of having an impact on your organization, no matter which role you occupy in that organization?
We all matter in this human realm. The key invitation is to give each of us a voice, to listen to each of us, even to the whispers.
Imagine how acknowledging a ‘being’ of a group, an organization or a family would be able to make a huge difference in that group, that organization or that family.
This article offers you a definition of the ‘group being’ and insight into the magic of ’Guest House Facilitation’. ‘Guest House Facilitation’ is an assembly of attitudes and technologies that enable a safe space for this ‘group being’ to connect with its higher potential.
What is a ‘group being’?
Each gathering of two or more people creates a ‘group being’. This ‘group being’ is composed of the different members and is at the same time more than the members. Whatever is present consciously and unconsciously affects this ‘group being’. The awareness of this ‘group being’ can be very powerful. In order to engage with this ‘being’ it is important to create a safe container.
The magic of ‘Guest House Facilitation’
‘Guest House Facilitation’ creates a safe container and manifests into the human realm from a self-organizing field in the Universe. This field holds the intelligence that we need to create a more beautiful and healthy world. The name ‘Guest House’ refers to Rumi’s poem. Rumi’ invites us in his famous poem ‘The Guest House’ to welcome and embrace all our inner guests, even if they are unexpected and sweep our house out.
‘Guest House Facilitation’ brings our awareness to the existence of a ‘group being’, and we welcome all that is present ‘now’ in this group body. The group body itself in ‘Guest House Facilitation’ calls forth the emergent ‘form and flow’ of its unique wisdom and leadership.
We achieve this through applying an unlimited set of mediation and conversation techniques applicable to a variety of situations. In ‘Guest House Facilitation’ you not only learn the techniques, you also understand how the components of each technique work in effecting healing, creativity and change.
The ‘group being’ itself invites us to enhance self-awareness of our individual contributions and talents. Each transformational attitude or technology creates space for skills that can enable or strengthen this specific attitude or technology.
Let us take a closer look at one or our attitudes: this fascinating triad of ‘Witness, Ask and Experience’ and how this affects our ‘group being’ and each individual member. We extensively covered this triad in several previous articles on this blog. Today we explore this magnificent triad through the eyes of ‘Guest House Facilitation’. We combine the different aspects of our triad with steps of the Theory U model part of the amazing organizational research of Otto Scharmer.
- Asking, opening our mind
- Experiencing, opening our heart
- Witnessing, opening our will
Asking: Open our mind
We start opening our mind, recognize our taken-for-granted assumptions and begin to hear and see things that were not evident before. Our mind is related in this context with our reason, with the whole realm of our concepts, ideas and beliefs of how the world makes sense to us. Most of these concepts, ideas and beliefs are cultural and social and related to the Story of Separation of our current world. This is a term the inspirational author Charles Eisenstein uses in his work.
The aspect ‘asking’ of our fascinating triad is literally giving the energy field around our head more space. We wonder without judgment. We open up for the moment now and we do not engage in what we already know, through our old stories. We are curious and open to the unknown.
We facilitate our inner guests, whatever is present for us is welcome. We meet the ‘being’ of our organization with an open mind, we have no judgments, we gently and softly receive the ‘being’ and ceaselessly ask the same question: “What is here now?”
We observe the ‘group being’, and we do not yet experience ourselves as part of this ‘group being’.
Experiencing: Open our heart
The second step is opening our heart to feel beyond the mind, achieving a deeper level of attention. We occupy our whole body in order to experience. We open our heart and automatically we come home into ourselves. Our energy field becomes stronger and more grounded.
We can make sense on a deep level. We experience in our physical body our sense of self. We perceive different emotions and feelings. We literally apply this ‘Guest House’ attitude. We might feel vulnerable.
The pitfall is that we easily will try to figure out or analyse what is happening. We keep our mind open though and only ask ourselves ‘What is here now?’ We stay present in the now.
‘Guest House Facilitation’ extends this opening of our heart to the ‘group being’. When we are home within ourselves, we see from the inside and we are part of the ‘group being’. A profound shift happens in our awareness, and we experience the ‘being’ through our physical body. This can be awkward and strange. We might feel overwhelmed and experience headaches, nausea and dizziness as old stories surface through this ‘group being’. Those physical symptoms relate to old stories referring to how we have always done things in our organization or family. They refer to our collectively held stories of Separation.
Witnessing: Open our will
Finally we are summoned to open our will, the ability to unlock our deepest feelings of commitment. Witnessing stretches the back of our energy field, we observe without doing. We trust what is happening to be useful and part of a bigger, much bigger, reality that we cannot understand in this moment. We allow the unfolding to take place. We keep checking if our heart is still open and if our mind is open.
This often brings us to an uneasy space. We want to do something, escape this uneasiness, this whole of experiencing and being with what is. It is an unusual space to reside in for us. When we move into action, we lose our contact with the ‘group being’. When we achieve at this moment the patience to wait and to not do, then we are in touch with this fascinating ‘being’ and we arrive at a state of ‘presencing’.
Presencing…
A great deal of knowledge and insight, thinking and intuition coalesces in the catalyst of Presencing. The definition is to sense, to tune in and to act from your highest future potential. You arrived at the bottom of the U. You are aware of habitual patterns from the past that are no longer constructive, and you learn from the future as it emerges.
The magic of ‘presence’ is using whatever is popping up, happening inside and outside, in the moment as potential. It is the flexibility to use whatever is arising and letting go of a pre-set structure. We move from the inner area to the outer area, and back—everybody is a guest in our house. Our enemy is our guest as well. We listen to all the voices, also the whispers. We no longer see problems, only opportunities. We are the ‘group being’ and the ‘group being’ is us.
‘Presencing’ is applying this wonderful triad of ‘witnessing, asking and experiencing’—opening our mind, our heart and our will.
Conclusion
You received a glimpse of the huge territory of ‘Guest House Facilitation’. ‘Guest House Facilitation’ incorporates this fascinating triad of ‘witnessing, asking and experiencing’ as well as the different steps of the Theory U model of Otto Scharmer.
‘Guest House Facilitation’ assists the identification of the next steps in individual and group development, what kind of continuing support would serve you and where you can get it.
Meanwhile, you can apply this fascinating attitude in your daily life. This stepwise approach leads us from the Story of Separation into the acknowledgment of a ‘group being’ in our families, groups and organizations.
The ‘group being’ enables us to hear our voice and value our essence and the unique contribution we make. It also enables us to hear the other voices and value their essence and their unique contribution.
Recognizing the ‘being’ of our groups allows environments that lead to increased transparency, trust, pleasure and creativity.
You can read more on the website chancestochange. You are welcome to connect with us, leave a message, come and co-create with us on one of the trainings or workshops.
Veerle
March, 10th 2014
VEERLE DE BOCK is a physician, healer, facilitator, trainer, coach and author of the trilogy, Becoming What is Changing. She spent nearly three decades of her life as a physician specializing in geriatric care, including a 21-year career as department head in an Antwerp regional hospital. In 2003, she began her study as an energetic healer, teacher, process facilitator and supervisor at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, and since 2007 has been leading many other trainees to master these same skills. In 2010 she was trained in the practice of Dynamic Facilitation by Jim Rough, which she now incorporates into her workshops and training sessions. In 2012 she decided to devote her work exclusively to writing, facilitation and coaching. That same year, she devised a new integrative practice of facilitation she calls ‘Guest House Facilitation’, that helps teams learn how to listen and utilise both the inner and outer processes within their organisation, to see it as a dynamic and living organism, and to reconnect to its intrinsic purpose and intention. Her book, Becoming What is Changing: Exposition, is the first part of a trilogy aimed at managers, team leaders and responsible employees who wish to bring this kind of transformation into the workplace, so they can create an environment where people are happy, satisfied and continuously growing.
Contact Veerle about the book, or to discuss coaching/facilitation for your organisation at:
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